Summer Fun

It's the lazy days of summer. The long running reality shows are getting musty and the young guns come out to play. There are some old ones in the summer too but they just seem more fun.

So You Think You Can Dance has new people paired up with veterans from past seasons. This makes for a very tight elimination because they're not kicking off one of the veterans. I noticed, the veterans weren't even in the running. So they're just kicking off one person a week. Thank the gods it's going to make for a very short season. I'm so very tired of this show. I just thought the reason I was tired of it last time was because they did back to back seasons but now that I've had a long rest, I still don't like it anymore. The dances just become weirder because everything has been done. The dancers all seem to look like people from the past and now we don't give a crap who's best. Because there's only 10 new people, there's a lot more blathering from the judges, choreographers and Kat Deeley. I'm sick to death of stupid sob stories. The show should be called, Shut Up and Dance.

America's Got Talent has a new judge. Howie Mandel doesn't seem elitist and likes some of the corny stuff. Guess what, if the performer has some personality, we like it. Americans love corny stuff. Piers is very quick on the buzzer but rightly so, most of the time. I like the buzzer. The judges can tell the performer they suck without having to go into long explanation. Now if only they'd have that cane that pulls people off of the stage. One great act was this bunch of college geeks who did a black light thing that made them look like they were floating. It made you wonder if your eyes were working. I'm not too crazy about those hyped up circus acts. Really? Sword swallowing and fire eating? I think I saw one of the worst magic acts ever which was bad because they gave the secret of the trick away accidentally. Morons! One thing I really hate is when they let an old lady go through, who's terrible, just because they feel sorry for her. Oops, they did it again. I hope they boot her quick.

True Beauty has been back for a few episodes. This show is full of contestants with egos the size of the universe. The funny thing is, they're all unappealing as human beings. The guys look like white trash meathead rednecks, there's a stupid Asian girl with attention seeking low self esteem, a gorilla faced loud mouthed black girl who can't hold her liquor, a couple of really ditzy stupid blonde bimbos and a brunette with the worst skin on TV I've seen in a long time. The show has disguised themselves as a contest for "The Face of Vegas" thinking that everyone knows about this show. Vanessa Minillo has some dumb idea that everyone knows her and knows she hosts this show. What really makes me laugh is when a person is eliminated and Vanessa reveals herself to them, they are totally blank and you can tell they have no idea who she is. Hey Vanessa! How about working on your own True Beauty and reduce your overblown ego. Anyway, so far, the men have been whittled down and one blonde ditz was DQ'd for using her cell phone. I say, chuck the whole group and start over. The producers made the mistake of wanting more drama on the show. Hello, mean girls and dumb guys aren't pretty to watch.

Last Comic Standing has really become boring. We know that these are not rookie comics. All of them have agents and have been in comedy clubs for 20 yrs. So far, the taste level is nil. Really? All that body function and sexual dysfunction stuff is funny? I question the taste of the judges. I think the judges are sleep deprived and full of alcohol.

One show I won't watch is Jersey Couture. Really? When I heard that, I thought it was an oxymoron. Since when has Jersey been known for grace, elegance, style and taste? When you show me one girl from Jersey with a sleek look and bun on her head that looks elegant, maybe I'll believe couture and Jersey can be in the same sentence. Meanwhile, even the commercials for the show are making my skin crawl.

I'm totally loving all the housewives shows showing the people going through the economic crisis? One by one, they're eating each other and going bankrupt. I love the fact that they can't seem to understand that just because they don't have any money coming in, they can't spend on high ticket items. The decadence of the 80's and 90's has caught up to all these shallow people. Hee hee hee My schaudenfreude is working overtime.

Top Chef is back and filmed in Washington D.C. If I wasn't sick to death of hearing Obama's name before, I sure am now. The first episode was only 1 hour long and man, the producers had to cram a lot in that hour. The result? The show was frenetic, choppy, hard to keep up with and didn't show everyone's food. Angelo seems to be the chef to beat so far. He won both the quickfire and the elimination. The white guy with the ugly teeth, ugly glasses and ugly dreadlocks to match was booted for his bad dessert. He only had 3 main ingredients. He bought his puff pastry and didn't bake it well, burned his macadamia nuts and the judges couldn't taste the maple syrup. Hell, I can do that and I'm not even a good cook. Note to all. When auditioning for a cooking competition, make sure you can cook first. Yeesh!

Work of Art is really quite fun. This week the artists had to make a 3 dimensional piece of art out of old appliances. I always say, when a person is truly an artist, they can make art out of anything because that's just how they perceive the world. Miles won for his insomniac inspired art which he was also a part of. I thought the guy who did the human figure with the TV head should've won but I don't know art. Tron or whatever that Asian/oriental guy's name is was booted for having a piece that kind of went over everyone's head. It's like college lectures. When the professor is way too smart, he's really boring unless you understand what he's thinking. Bye, maybe that fat egotistic goth woman will be booted next week. I can only wish.

Hell's Kitchen is showing double episodes and I'm not sure why. Maybe Fox is trying to get this show over before they start airing Gordon Ramsey's other show. Anyway, I love it. In the first hour, the chefs had to catch pigs that had collars with foods written on them. Each team had to work with 3 pork products and 3 sides. The pig catching was totally hilarious cuz it was in the mud. The red team now has Scott on the team since he and Autumn weren't eliminated but made to switch teams last week. Scott suggested using the blood sausage with the prunes. Okay, ick. Ramsay thought so too. Nilka has developed a sour attitude which I think is a result of stress and sleep deprivation. Anyway, the blue team won. Autumn seems to be fitting in with the guys on the blue team and she has become their eye candy. Their prize was going to a spa and it's always funny to see guys at a spa. At dinner service, the teams each had their own 2 hours to cook while the other team was serving in the dining room. Autumn had the brilliant idea of encouraging people to send back their food cuz it really ticked off Ramsay. Fran finally pulled her finger out and proved she could cook and Scott was just a lot of hot air. If I have to hear him say, "I work in fine dining." again, I'll puke. What does he do in fine dining, peel the potatoes? So the blue team won that service. Maria was a ditzy mess in both cooking and serving and was sent home. One thing I noticed, man, does she look way better with makeup. Okay so for the next hour, the chefs had a challenge with 5 mother sauces and 20 required ingredients. I didn't know tomato and hollandaise were mother sauces, but I guess Ramsay didn't have time to quibble. Nilka grabbed all the ingredients she wanted to use and made the best dish on her team. The Italian guy couldn't even cook his pasta right and half the women on the red team couldn't even identify their protein. The blue team won again and were treated to a visit to a British pub. I thought, BFD (big freakin deal) until they all got their high end pots and pans. That was really a nice prize for chefs. Then again, I think the best prize was not having to do the punishment since the red team had to clean the ovens, stoves and everything in the kitchen. For dinner service, it was family night with kids. Oh brother. Not only do I hate kids, but I really loathe them in restaurants. These kids actually had some manners so they weren't the typical brats I usually see in restaurants. The red team fell apart and wasn't even allowed to finish dinner service. I don't understand why Siobhan is still there. She's been terrible from the beginning and dumber than a box of rocks. She's also homely enough to scare the skin off of the chicken so maybe that's her advantage. Needless to say, the blue team won. Scott was booted, finally. He reminded me of Matt; just not psycho. He also had a weird palate and thought he was the greatest thing since sliced bread. Benjamin was put on the red team to pull them together. We'll see if he can do it.

The Next Food Network Star does an on camera mini challenge every week. That's smart since that's the main part of the job. I am totally in love with Aarti. She just seems so cool and fun and her food looks good too. With my luck, she won't win. I swear, there are people who have been on tv already as contestants. Zinta or whatever her stupid name is, is really annoying. Her voice, looks, food and the way she interacts with people is terrible. She reminds me of that weird girl in school who always wanted to sit by me. I avoided her like the plague so I wouldn't have to hurt her feelings by telling her to get away from me. Anyway, I digress. The chefs had to pair up. Each had an ingredient. They had to do one dish with it on their own and then they had to do a dish that paired up the ingredients. The food was interesting. The one guy complained that he was working with a home cook. If her food's good, what the heck's the difference? I noticed, in this season, they seem to focus on the kitchen accidents: cut finger, burned hand, stepped on foot, dropped food, etc. Whatever. My wish came true and Zinta was sent home. I was so afraid she was going to win cuz they always seem to pick the person I really can't stand, to win i.e. Melissa and that brunette housewife/mother. We'll see what happens.

Okay, well, that's enough for now. I'll see you next week!

Summer's seasons

Well, we had a couple of wrap ups but as we all know, the tv universe never stops and new shows come in when old ones go out.

The Challenge: Fresh Meat had it's last challenge. First they showed the outcome of the last exile challenge. Jenn and Noor won that one over Ryan. Bye Ryan. Maybe you'll learn to get rid of the strong people when you have a chance instead of hiding behind them. The last challenge was a long one with the teams trekking all over half of British Columbia. Landon and Carley eventually won the whole thing with Landon pulling, shoving and prodding Carley all of the way.

Top Chef Masters had it's final challenge too. The food was so good and beautiful, the judges had a hard time finding things to pick on. Moonen showed he's a hypocrite by making venison shipped all the way from New Zealand for his last dish. Not only was it not fish, but it wasn't a local sustainable product either. WTF? We have all kinds of venison running all over the USA. Susar Lee made cool looking food but maybe too cool for the fuddy duddy judges. In the end, Marcus Samuelsson won which was good since he wasn't thought to be the strongest. In the end, it comes down to how good you are that day and Samuelsson blew the judges out of their seats.

So You Think You Can Dance is back. Unfortunately, only 10 new dancers were accepted which made the competition really tight. I'm not sure how they're going to do the eliminations because 10 past contestant favorites are back. Are they going to eliminate a whole couple each week? Mia Micheals is replacing Mary Murphy which is too bad because Mia has that bitchy butch thing going on that is so abrasive but then when she likes something, it's like a crocodile smile. It seems she'll like a person and smile and coo but something about her says she can't wait to tear them apart next week. Nigel Lithgow is back with his big teeth and hair like he's trying to pretend he's as young as the dancers. Whatever. We'll see how things work out this season.

Work of Art: The Next Great Artist is a new eliminations show for artists. We all know true artists are kind of those weirdos in school who lived in a world of their own. Well these people are all like that. There are a couple of people who seem normal and then they do one thing and we see the weirdness. I don't begin to understand art so the elimination was odd to me. The artists were supposed to do portraits of another artist. 2 women did art that didn't even look like a portrait. I believe in artistic license but a bunch of dots and lines isn't even art to me. The other lady did a watercolorish looking landscape from Strawberry Shortcake's mind but at least it was pretty and had color and maybe eluded to feeling. The watercolor artist was booted but the other stupid lady was bitchy and better drama for the show. I really hate when they do that. Personally, the ugliest thing to show up on the show was Sarah Jessica Parker herself. What a horseface.

America's Got Talent is back for the Summer. We're in the city auditions stage. I wish the show would show the really bad ones. They're showing some but not a lot. The only standout I've seen is Sir Poppycock who did a number from The Barber of Seville and not only sang really well, but had great stage presence too. I hate those acts that you know can only go over once but are impressive that first time. OMG, we have to sit through that again? Nick Cannon needs to be shot out of a cannon. He's somehow frenetic and boring at the same time. Howie Mandel has better taste than I thought he would and thank the gods Sharon is there to boot those people who can't stay on tune. I usually call this show America Has No Taste but we'll see what comes out of it this season.

Hell's Kitchen is back and really good. This season, they actually got people who could cook. Amazingly enough, they finished their first service. I don't think I've ever seen that before. Ramsey started out the show with the chefs cooking signature dishes and had a gross make-out scene with his wife in disguise. Ick. So far, one chef walked out after harsh verbal treatment from Ramsey and the tatooed punk looking chef on the men's team was booted for just not knowing how to cook. There it is.

Thank the gods Wipeout is back. This show is full of physical comedy and with snarky commentating on the side, it's even better. Good thing it's only an hour long cuz by the end, I've peed my pants and hurt all of my ribs from laughing so hard. Can we say Big Red Balls?

Okay, well that's enough. I know there are a lot of other shows on for the summer but I have to end this blog somewhere. See you next week. Top Chef is starting and I can't wait.