Hoes, Hums and Hohums

Well, I'm back.

Let's talk about that Housewives franchise. Usually, I can't stand these media hogging shallow women w/ more time and money than brain cells. I do have to say, there's always a smart one in the group who makes the show a little less aggravating. The newest installment is Beverley Hills. This should be called the Real Desperate Housewives. Camille Grammar seems to think everything is all about her including all insults and compliments. I now have a whole new level of respect for the man who could put up w/ this bimbo for that long. Run Kelsey,run!!! And may the divorce be with you. The funny part of the show is the 2 sisters and one is actually a former star w/ real cred to her name (Kim Richards). The smart woman of the group is unfortunately, the lady with the English accent. Great, now all American women seem like boors to the whole world. The only really respectable person seems to be Adrienne with the shallow meathead husband. She actually is the wealthiest but is the least snooty and most down to earth. She's also the only really likeable one. All of the others are kind of sickening after about a half hour.

Hell's Kitchen was once again pre-empted for something else. They can't put MLB on one of the sports channels?

On America's Next Top Model, Ann seems to have shown her achilles heel. She's terrible when relating to real people. Ok, so remember,I'm having to watch webcasts to keep up with this series. The girls first had to win a spot as a grammy girl by dressing each other. Really Ann? You thought the skinny girl next to you would wear a size 12? Kayla, w/ the fire engine red hair, won. Oh boy! I hope she changes her hair back to a more natural color before the Grammys. Then the girls and to portray designers w/ another model in the shot. I didn't think Ann's picture was that great but what do I know. This time that hispanic short haired single mother w/ the bad complexion won. The prettiest girl in the competition proved it takes more than just stunning looks to stay. That black girl with the beautiful but somber face was told to go home.

On Survivor, the show is lacking any likeable people. Just when you think they may be nice, they turn out to be major snakes. The editors and producers are usually pretty good at toning down someone's unlikeableness but there must be too much footage. They're probably saying, "Gee if we cut out all the mean stuff, we'll only have a 10 minute show." Anyway, Nyonka seemed okay cuz they kept her off camera the whole time. This time, they had a reward challenge and a separate immunity challenge. The reward challenge involved one team launching a ball into a net mid-jump while the other team's person did blocking of the shot. Team not-La Flor seemed like they should've won but they didn't and the reward was to milk a cow and eat a rustic dinner including that milk. Ummm...I guess when you're starving, you will eat anything. I don't know how good the food was cuz a few people were crying. The immunity challenge involved aiming a chute to make a ball hit tables. It's amazing what a good meal will do for a team cuz team not-La Flor won again. On La Flor, the guy with the HII was dumb enough to let that skinny guy talk him into handing it over. At tribal council, the skinny guy made it kind of clear that he thought the HII was his and his alone. Hmmm...that'll make for an interesting next episode. Meanwhile, Marty tries to be the suck up to the people who seem to want to boot him out but someone sticks to their word. It wasn't Fabio. The ER doctor from the older team was booted out. Nobody really cares cuz at this point, we just want to see them all starve to death.

On Top Chef: Just Desserts, the chefs were split into 2 teams. Heather deemed them, Team Diva and Team Loser. Hmmm...how very catty of her. How is it these Asians lose their respectability when they're American? So they start with the mis en place relay. Team Loser kept up until the spreading of the strudel dough. When doing a meticulous task, it's not good to shout at your teammates, Morgan. The funny moment was watching Zack make whipping egg whites look really hard while Morgan made it look really easy. So Team Diva won the relay race. The teams were then told they were to run a pastry shop. Cool! I wondered how they were going to do the business challenge. So we had Team Diva and Whisk Me Away. I love that name and you can tell it made a good impression because I can't remember the name of Diva's place. You can tell Eric has had business experience. He let Morgan and Danielle just hash things out while he worked and made sure the display case looked really yummy. All in all, Team Loser won! The celebration was great. Even better? Heather was told to pack her stuff and go! Yay! I'm glad to see that the judges recognize that a simple thing like a chocolate chunk cookie can be a great thing.

Project Runway had it's finale. They did fit in a small reunion show that seemed to be mostly about the 3 finalists. If I were one of the returning booted contestants, I would've been really mad. That girl who was booted the very first episode didn't even get to say anything and they never did address how bitchy Ivy was to everybody. Wretched Gretchen was called fakey bitch by her friends and cried about it. She should've owned up to it and said, "Yeah, I was exhausted, stressed and living on coffee and energy drinks. You'd be bitchy too." Really? We had to see that whole montage of the meeting of the relatives? Anyway, they rushed the final designers to the workroom and the cameras followed. We see a lot of talking and wondering and not a lot of sewing to justify a better reunion show. This time, we get to see the backstage frenzy with Mondo missing models and having line-up mix-ups. Andy's still making new clothes and Gretchen is wearing granny lipstick. On the runway, Andy's clothes are a lot of black and grey but avante garde. Mondo has a lot of mixed prints and color and seems fun. Gretchen's granola collection is half hidden under her models' big shaggy hair. Jessica Simpson is deemed fashionable enough to be a guest judge. Oh-kay... Jessica's looking somewhat bloated after her travels. The judges argue with the younger one's liking Mondo's fresh and young looks and the older ones liking Gretchen's futuristic stuff. Really? Clothes from the 60's and 70's with cut out backs are futuristic? Whatever. To the dismay of all of America, Gretch the wretch wins. I puked and turned the channel at that point but I would guess the family was brought it, everybody cries, the winning model is brought out and Gretch gets to gloat. Ick.

On the Apprentice, the teams had to sell a musical to backers. Surprisingly (is his name Dave?) is not so annoying to the team and actually shows he can be intelligent. Stuart stumbles during his part of the presentation but it still goes well and the booklet to go w/ it is well done. Meanwhile, the black girl who everyone disses volunteers to be the project manager but admits she has no musical experience. Meanwhile, the bombastic blonde seems to be an authority on everything. Why didn't she volunteer to be project manager? She also complained that she had too much responsibility on the past tasks and was tired of it. So she was put on the single task of making the promo booklet and...it sucked. These people have never heard of a teaser. The presentation was very choppy with narration cutting in to try to tell the whole musical. You don't do that. You make a teaser and make the backers want to be a part of the production. Anyway, the women lost but it came out that Masa revealed to the men how much was made the week before on the pedi-cab task. Masa talked herself right out of a job. I wondered when Trump would fire her for her disloyalty but when it was mixed with betrayal, it was the straw that broke the camel's back. Bye Masa! Evil has left the building.

The Amazing Race went to Russia. It's so nice to see summer. There was no snow in sight and the day was very long. The teams all started out even getting onto a train. When off the train, the dating couple guy blamed the inability to get a cab on the fact that she took too long to get ready. Yeah, who you trying to impress? The cameras? So the first task was to either look for a film clip in a huge pile of film or try to identify piano pieces in a room full of different piano players. I knew the music one would be hard because concertos can be very long and different depending on where the person is in the music and when you're in a room full of other people banging on pianos, it's hard to distinguish music at all. Then at the next task, one person had to dress as a babushka and plant potatoes in the traditional Russian way. Once again, these are not things tourists would want to do. This time that other dating couple came in first and the goth couple got to the finish mat last. But... it's a non-elimination leg so...ho hum. Whatever. You know this show has been on too long when it's full of likeable people and we just want to see everybody just go.

On The Next Iron Chef, the chefs had to show respect to ingredients. What does that mean? Does that mean keep the ingredient identifiable, or make it more spectacular than it is? The chefs first had to work with potatoes. According to the fellow chefs, respecting the ingredient means to make a potatoe dish where the potatoes are potatoes. Oh-kay... Chef Canora was given the win and was none too gracious about it. For the elimination task, the chefs had to make dishes from the 4 main regions of the USA: South, East, West and North and they didn't mean Alaska. Somehow East meant southern states to some chefs. To others North meant New England or the midwest. Hmmm... This time, Ming Tsai was declared the winner with solid flavor with his own unique twist. Chef Chauhan, along with her pierced nose, was sent home.