Wrapping Up Before Christmas

Merry Christmas fellow competition reality show watchers.  I promised to do some finales and they were quite exciting.  So let's get to it.

The Next Iron Chef: Redemption was one of the most ironic shows ever.  It seemed everytime someone won the week before and then got the advantage the next week, they got the boot.  The only chef who seemed to be immune to that was Amanda Freitag.  The chefs were in Las Vegas and they had to make fusion dishes w/ things like peppermint candy and fish, fruit and fish, gorgonzola and candy and well...you get the idea.  The best part was seeing the grimaces on the faces of the chefs as each pairing was revealed.  Marcelle had won the week before so he got to mete out the pairings to the chefs.  Well, long story short, Chef Meta didn't really do anything w/ his skittles except reshape them and Appleman must have a weird palate cuz he keeps landing on the bottom too.  They had to cook big fat shrimp dishes on a teppan.  Hilarious!  I was fascinated to watch Meta using his bare hands instead of utensils to move his food around on that hot grill.  Wow!  Anyway, Appleman made a sauce inside the shrimp head and the judges loved it. Ick.  Bye Chef Meta.  Drink an energy drink and maybe you won't bore us to death.  So they were down to 4 and the chefs were challenged to do a Vegas buffet but work in 2 teams of 2.  Marcelle and Guarnacelli were on one team and Appleman was chosen by Freitag to be on her team.  I think she was thinking that if they lost, she could easily beat the pants off of Appleman. What a smart lady.  So blah blah blah, Vigneron and Guarnacelli land on the bottom.  It was no surprise that Guarnacelli beat Marcelle in the Chairman's challenge.  Bye Marcelle. No soup for you!  Ok, so finally the finale.  I couldn't believe how much they crammed into 1 hour.  First the 3 chefs each had to make a dish using one of the judges favorite foods.  Whatever!  Eh, so Appleman came in last and he was sent home right off.  Then Guarnecelli and Freitag went to Kitchen Stadium for the last battle and it was kind of just like the real Iron Chef show except they had a lot of different ingredients to choose from cuz they represented the 3 main iron chefs:  Flay, Morimoto and Symon.  Well!  If I were the newer Iron Chefs, I would've been very peeved to be so obviously downgraded.  Well, so anyway, after cooking and tasting of 3 dishes from each Chef Guarnacelli was declared the winner.  Ok.  So who's going to be the soux chef for Zakarian?  Oh well, at least I won't have to see Arpaia's big teeth anymore.

Survivor had it's last episodes too.  We saw the final 5 return to the beach where stupid Abi Maria profusely thanked everybody for keeping her around.  Hmmm...I wonder if she realized she kind of gave away the fact that she didn't have an hidden immunity idol after all.  So she proved she's not only a dumb liar, but really just dumb.  Everybody picked up on it.  The luxury challenge had the survivors balancing and putting puzzles together.  At one point, Malcolm was really behind everybody and he still pulled out the win. He chose Skupie and Lisa to join him and they ate and swam w/ huge whale sharks.  I wonder if they waited a half an hour before swimming after they ate.  Back at the beach, Abi Maria was trying to buddy up to Denise who she's been really rude to all the time.  Also, she was trying to intimate she has her HII.  Uh huh...no fooling these people twice you twit.  You can tell Denise is a mental therapist cuz she is really good at looking like she's listening when you know she can't stand Abi.  We can't stand Abi!  For immunity, the survivors had to do that get the balls on the paddle into their little spots.  Malcolm wins again!  Wow, the guy is on a roll.  Actually, we just didn't want Abi to win.  This time, the survivors were smart and finally gave Abi the boot but not before Jeff let her blather on way too long.  I loved the shot of Skupin dancing back to the beach.  Too funny!!!  The next day, everyone revelled in their Abi free lives.  So no more luxury challenges.  It was time to get down to brass tacks.  They had that stupid fallen comrades thing that's kind of like a suppository; just a necessary thing to get the crap over with.  It was interesting to note Denise knew every single person.  So they get to their final immunity challenge and it's a hold skinny cylindrical sticks together as long as you can.  The weird thing is, Malcolm had won an advantage and it was that he'd get a restart if he messed up.  It was very surprising to see Malcolm use it up and be eliminated first.  Skupin pulled out the win, but kudos to Lisa for coming in 2nd.  So it came down to 2 members of the blue tribe and 2 members of the yellow tribe.  Denise asked Malcolm to stick to loyalty and even the vote and she'd fight it out but Malcolm ho and hummed. Ding!  Denise picked up on the fact that she might be the odd man out so she went to Lisa and Skupin and convinced them that they wouldn't win against Malcolm cuz he's just the coolest guy on the beach.  Yeah...  At tribal, the survivors sounded the most intelligent I'd heard all season.  Surprisingly enough, Malcolm got the boot and he was not happy.  So finale time.  The trio had their fancy breakfast, burned camp and then went to meet Jeff and the jury.  Oh blah blah blah.  Abi and Penner turned out to have the biggest chips on their shoulders but Abi made no sense and needs to work on her English.  Penner revealed to all the youngsters that Lisa was a childstar.  Everybody else was pretty forgettable.  I wish they'd quit asking, "Why do you think you should win?"  Yo, cuz they want the million dollars.  Anyway, in the end Denise came out the winner.  Wow!  I'm glad for her.  She had a tough game, gave every challenge her all and really did a good job of trying to be diplomatic.  I have to say, the reunion show was very unsatisfying w/ a lot of people ignored.

The Challenge:  Battle of the Seasons also had it's finale.  The final teams were San Diego, Brooklyn and little Las Vegas.  They went to Namibia and had to trek through the desert w/ periodic stops to do a puzzle.  Sarah was the hero of her team but you're only as good as your weakest person as other teams from other season have found out.  Devyn proved to be the bag of rocks on her team.  Meanwhile, Las Vegas couldn't get along.  Sam was prodded verbally by her team.  In the end, the guys of San Diego shoved Sam up the last hill and they won.  Awww...I wanted Brooklyn to win and they came in 3rd.  Well Heck! 

Cake Boss:  The Next Great Baker has a really nice and professional bunch.  One lady looks just like Minerva from last season.  I'm sure they put her on the show just to watch Buddy crap his pants.  Everybody hated Minerva.  One guy is totally hot and then there's the usual assortment of small business owners, pity party single mothers, and fresh out of culinary school newbies.  One guy already bowed out of the competition due to illness.  The challenges are exactly the same as other seasons but the cakes are looking cool.  We all watch just to see the work being done.  It's like magic and I wish the show would cut Buddy's talking and show more of the work.  I do like that first there's a taste challenge and then an artistic one.  You never really see anybody eat the cakes from the art challenge.  One skinny brunette lady seems to be the emerging star talent of the show.  I do have to say, they're turning out cakes that look better than Buddy's.

Top Chef keeps proving Seattle cuisine is the equivalent of Jersey Couture.  Both are oxymorons w/ emphasis on the moron.  I'm sorely disappointed w/ this season.  The judges ask for fine dining but yet pick simple dishes.  The chefs can't seem to do the basic cooking right and the challenges are really quite boring.  The only fun thing on the show is Stefan.  Once again, he's flirting and chasing the lesbian.  His arrogance is just hot air and peacock posing.  It totally cracks me up.  One week Brooke won both challenges and the next Kristen won both.  None of it was very interesting.  Maybe the show has become old because now all the food seems to start looking alike.  Nobody does anything cool like the Voltaggios or Richard Blaise.  Nobody cares who gets kicked off.  Zzzzz...

Project Runway Allstars had the innovation challenge.  The materials all came from a Christmas store.  Cooool.  They were warned not to make their looks look like Christmas though.  I couldn't believe the cool looks that the designers made.  Poor Josh literally made his outfit out of ribbon and trim.  Eeek!  It was cool and I liked his hotpants.  Casanova couldn't pull it together and wasted so much time and material that he literally slapdashed a look out of scraps from other designers.  The judges noticed and he got the boot.  Awww...poor Casanova. After being robbed so many times he finally hit the wall.  The next show had the designers make a look inspired by the 1920's.  Hmmm...I was expecting some sack dresses.  The designers embraced the beads and fringe of the flappers and that was about it.  Uli seems to be on a roll.  Anthony Ryan made his usual sheath cuz it's working for him.  This time Laura Kathleen's palazzo pants look didn't work for the judges and she was given the boot.  Yeah...not too many of those big pants were seen in the 1920's.  Ivy's been getting away w/ some fugly designs.  Whatever.

Redneck Island showed the rednecks being homesick and the women getting sick and tired of going natural.  I loved the chicken wire rollers they made.  I think my Grandma had some curlers that looked like that.  The island was down to 4 guys and 5 women.  They were able to win some foods by shooting arrows on a board and it was hilarious cuz the only thing that was hit was lettuce, eggs and lobster.  Top Chef contestants could really go gourmet w/ those items but not these rednecks and I was LOL.  For the final challenge, the rednecks had to do a trivia challenge but the twist was, the loser would immediately go home and there would still be a reckoning (vote out).  I wish they'd do this on other shows cuz it's essentially double elimination but one person really deserves the boot.  The winner got immunity cuz there aren't any teams anymore.  One of the guys got immunity.  The blonde lady proved she was dumber than a box of rocks and was eliminated.  ATV does not stand for American TV.  The final vote looked like it might be totally split 4 guys against 4 gals but everyone was shocked when one of the guys was voted out.  Whoa!  Interesting.  That was better than Survivor.

Ok, well that's about it.  The Christmas movie season is upon us and the running theme is romance.  Ugh.  I like the Groundhog Day, It's a Wonderful Life and Christmas Carol themed ones.  Hey, that's everything else.   Oh well.  Maybe next year.  Merry Christmas everybody and Happy New year. Until next time, stay tuned.

And...There it is

Hello fellow competition reality show watchers.  It's quite the exciting season.  I love the way the reality shows show they've had good planning by ending their shows right before the Holidays bump them or integrate the holiday theme into the show.  Unfortunately, I haven't been faithful w/ this blog and have to cram more than one episode into my synopses.  Oh alright, I'll get to it.

The Amazing Race went to the Netherlands.  The racers acted more like high schoolers and also, it seems they no longer camp together at the pitstop.  The alliance of 3 teams waited w/ baited breath to see who had survived after the double u-turn plan.  Everybody rejoiced to see the goat farmers aka the Beekman Boys.  They weren't really glad that they survived, they were just happy not to see the other white couple whom they didn't like.  Hmm...kinda catty.  The twins really showed they have no grace by yelling out, "We gotta lose these fools."  BTW, after landing in the Netherlands, they had to drive themselves around so it started out like a caravan.  The twins found you do need to actually learn to drive a stickshift and it might take more than 1 lesson.  When they told everybody how they skipped out on things like tennis lessons or driving lessons, it told us a lot about them and it wasn't good.  Maybe it was the editing but the twins seemed more and more immature and less fun.  They may have been having fun but nobody else was laughing.  So after watching the teams fix windmills and watching the taller of the goat farmers hit tennis balls, it seemed the twins had caught up, but to everybody's surprise, the goat farmers hit the mat next to last which isn't bad for a team who had previously been almost 12 hours behind at one point.  So did the twins go home?  Of course not.  Tis the time for a non-elimination leg.  Oh ok.   So then the teams went to France and the funniest thing was, the goat farmers showed their huge advantage by knowing the language.  All of sudden, they were everybody's friend.  Now that is like high school.  I have to say, France was boring.  The teams plowed fields, fed dogs and searched for cultivated mushrooms.  Isn't that what everybody wants to do when they go to France?  The twins had navigation problems and kept showing up last to everything but the speed bump didn't help either.  I think they were hoping their friends would wait for them but they didn't.  Really?  That's why you don't waste time making friends or enemies during the race.  It's a freakin' race not a fight cancer walk-athon.  Yeesh.  The show took the time to showcase it's sponsor and really made the episode all about that car w/ it's cool features.  Whatever.  The great thing was the Chippendales landed on the finish mat first and won a car each.  That was so fun to see.  The twins found the race is kind of hard when you have to navigate yourself and landed on the mat last and were sent home.  Everybody can shut up about cab drivers not knowing where they're going.   I'm saving the finale for the next blog.  All I can say is, we didn't have to listen to those bratty twins anymore.

Survivor was down to 6.  Abi Maria annoyed everybody w/ ill manners and laziness.  She's alone now and tries to connive and sweet talk at the same time.  The problem is, she really sucks at it and the men aren't that dumb this season.  So they had their usual auction.  Surprisingly, everybody but Abi spent all of their $500 on food.  She held out for the advantage scroll.  Now that people can't pool their money, the person who saves their's can snap up that last item if everybody else is stupid.  Abi was kind of smart by telling people it also had a clue to another HII.  It didn't.  I would think people would've suspected something when she couldn't show it.  In the immunity challenge, it was a 3 part event and the advantage Abi got was to only have to do the last phase.  It really was an advantage because by the time they got to the last phase, everybody else was tired and depleted.  Each phase started w/ a trivia question but they only showed 1 round of that.  If they got the answer wrong, they had weight added to them which made it harder to do the physical part of the phase.  Because of the footage deletion, Probst had to do a lot of explaining.  In the end, Abi showed that if she really wants to, she can actually win a challenge.  The question is, did the other Survivors realize she hadn't been trying before?  By that time I was really sick and tired of Abi telling everybody, in really bad English, how she has to look out for herself.  So of course the people had to choose another goat to be butchered.  It turned out to be Penner.  He finally realized his wait and see attitude gave him the quick ticket to Ponderosa.  I'll bet he was sorry he didn't jump on that alliance offering from Lisa.  An offer like that is like getting a sucky present at Christmas.  Even if you don't want it, you smile and act like you love it.  The next show had the family members reunions.  The luxury prize was no prize but Malcolm won it.  The family members got to stay overnight on the island.  Malcolm chose Lisa and Skupin to share the prize.  If I were Denise, I might smell a rat but she seems very secure about Malcolm's loyalty.  Ok, here's the thing.  Loyalty doesn't really matter if you're the only other person from the original tribe and if you're gone.  Man, people are naive this season.  The most fun thing to watch was the family members being told to give up their clothes before they left.  It went like this, "I'm taking your shirt."  Well ok!  The immunity challenge was quite physical and Malcolm pulled out the win.  Lisa's family member had concocted a plan to blindside Malcolm and you know the adage about the best laid plans.  You could see the "Oh crap" look on Lisa's face.  It's a good thing none of the other people told Malcolm about it.  Abi told the tribe she had found the HII and I kept wondering if they would fall for it.  It seemed they did. The white guy w/ the rodent face who's pretty much been a bump on a log the whole season (Carter) immediately got the spotlight. The alliance of 4 stuck together and rodent face was sent to Ponderosa after a lot of stupid talk from Abi and a weak, "Could you just keep me around?" from rodent face.  Yeah, go find your balls Carter.  I think you left them in the corner.  I thought for sure they'd split the vote to flush out Abi's idol.  I suspect Abi's the keep to the end Villain.  I wonder if she realizes she has a snowball's chance of winning.  She thinks she'll get respect for outplaying but that only applies if you weren't a coattail rider.  People should remember that evil skinny twig from Ari's season.


The Challenge: Battle of the Seasons was down to only 2 whole teams and 3 half teams.  They had a bump around challenge which was freakin' hilarious.  Unfortunately, after a brilliant showing by the girls, the boys of Brooklyn dq'd because they couldn't stay on their feet.  San Diego pulled out the powerteam win.  Las Vegas landed on the bottom.  The drama in the house consisted of people grousing that Jonnae hadn't been in the arena yet and the Las Vegas 2, telling each other how much they hated each other.  Yeesh.  Note to Marie.  Don't antagonize the girl on the powerteam, they may send you in the Arena.  Uh, oh...too late.  Team St. Thomas was sent to the arena and Marie then went on to tell how much she hated everyone and would forever.  Everybody sat back and said, "Whatever" and Jonnae just grinned after having been saved by her new boyfriend, San Diego Zack.  The arena teams had to do that puzzle and dunk thing.  Las Vegas pulled out the win and sent the last of the St. Thomas team home.  Bye!  You did a great job, Marie, of making people glad you're gone.

Top Chef is proving Seattle thinks their cuisine is all that but, it's really not.  First they had a challenge to make dishes from a restaurant menu but the twist was, the menu was from 1950.  Really?  I thought the judges wanted fine dining.  I found it hilarious that the winner made sides for the courses.  Har har.  I guess giant potatoes and sherbet were fine dining in the 1950's.  Yeah, there wasn't any jello or chicken ala king.  It was fun to see Naomi Pomeroy judging the quickfire which had the chefs breakdown huge beef carcasses and make beef dishes.  Zzzz...  The Japanese girl chef was sent home for an underdone potato dish.  She did have 4 hours but once again, it was a case of her helping everybody else and not doing her own dish well.  Here's a clue people.  The judges don't care who's the hardest working and most helpful person.  It's a competition and you have to compete for yourself.  I didn't feel sorry for her at all.  The next quickfire had the chefts trying to put breakfast on a stick at a kind of farmer's market setting.  They were able to buy small appliances.  I was wondering why nobody bought a deep fat fryer because anything battered and deep fried can be put on a stick.  Instead, they did crazy stuff like trying to put crepes, breakfast tacos and other fancy stuff on the sticks.  Hello, I smell a whole lotta pretentious.  I think the winners made breakfast sandwich on a stick.  For the challenge, the chefs got dumb unique food items to make their dishes w/ like:  candied salmon, cheese curds, rose petal jelly, spicy pickles.  Really?  I thought the judges wanted fine dining.  Chefs hate pre-made food to cook w/ and even quirky fancy isn't liked.  It wasn't a surprise that the judges didn't really like any of the dishes but to add insult to injury, Colicchio told the chefs that not only would nobody win, but 2 people would go home.  Oy!  It's not like the chefs have been getting fancy prizes for the wins anyway.  In the end, fat ego white giant and his meek cooking partner went home for their burger.  They had thought that if they made a great burger, the pickle (their ingredient) would shine.  Unfortunately, they didn't make a good burger.  In fact, the judges hated it.  Next time, if you're going to use a crumpet for the bun, toast it first.  Yeesh.

Redneck Island had a teabag game for food items and it was hilarious to watch.  I remember playing something like that at camp.  The people were dressed in huge foam teabags and soaked themselves.  Then they squeezed themselves out as much as they could to fill jugs.  The methods of squeezing was the funniest thing to see but I loved that everybody just went for it.  Each jug represented part of a picnic and the rednecks earned themselves a good one except no booze.  Awww...  it was the last jug and they just couldn't get her done.  The big challenge had the teams trying to hold up 1 member hoisted in the air by holding on to the rope.  At time intervals, a team member was taken away.  Unfortunately for one team, they sent home their dumb strong guy.  Ooh, that was too bad.  One girl literally fainted in the harness and it was tricky getting her to shore since she had been suspended over water.  One team won and I can't remember who but the weird thing was, the person sent home was another guy.  I'm thinking the women who are left are playing pretty smart.

The Next Iron Chef: Redemption had the auction challenge.  It went just like last year even the very end outcome.  If you forgot, they brought out food items.  This time the items were huge and the factor was that breaking the food item down had to be considered in the time.  The chefs auctioned time but the increments went down.  Finally, each chef had to make their dishes and the winner from the last week taste tested, critiqued and then wrote down a name to go automatically into the elimination round.  Last year, Anne Burrell met her demise when she wrote down Zakarian, then had the worst dish, had to cook against him and then was eliminated.  This time Faulkner wrote down Appleman and the whole scenarion happened again.  Poor Chef Faulkner; she was devastated to be caught in her own net.  It was a weird deja vu moment.  Lesson for this week?  Go easy on the saffron and not just because it's expensive.

Well, that seems to be it for this week.  The next blog will have a couple of finales.  How exciting!  Until then, stay tuned!

Who's Here to Play?

Hello fellow TV watchers.  I'm so sorry I haven't kept up weekly but instead, weakly.  I chose the title of the post because I noticed people on the competition reality shows have noticed from past seasons that any show of bad behavior will be edited to make them the villain.  Therefore, everybody is trying to be sweet, good and friendly.  The problem is, they forget it's a competition.  Where's the fierce competitiveness that people respect?  Why do they feel the need to be friends w/ fellow competitors?  It's not like they're going to be moving in next door or forcing each other to be put on Christmas card lists.  Jeez.

The Next Iron Chef: Redemption has been really fun to watch.  They have come up w/ original challenges and the chefs are quite competitive.  They have a chairman's challenge and then the 2 or 3 people on the bottom have to cook against each other w/ a secret ingredient.  The only thing about the show is, they seemed to have run out of fresh competitors.  Truth be told, I'm kind of sick and tired of seeing some of these people lose over and over.  Really?  Are they that desperate for this job?  Are these chefs not giants in their field?  Really?  I gotta look at Spike Mendelson's ugly mug again?  I'm really rooting for Chef Liz Falkner.  She is so cool and would be great to see in kitchen stadium.  I do love seeing a chef refuse to share an ingredient.  Most of the time there's plenty but the chefs just don't want to use up time hunting for it if they can just use some of their neighbor's.  Because they're all on the same level, they also encroach on each other's territory, moving pots and pans around and turning burners high and low.  That's when it gets funny because you know they do that to their sous chefs.  They've all competed before so they should know to keep a close eye on their own stuff.  Marcelle seems to have matured or they're not editing the show to make him seem annoying.  So far, it's been a really good season.  I'm already sick of seeing Donatella Arpaia again and again but I can't get enough of Simon Majumdar.  He is so cool and sexy w/ his accent and bald head. 

The Amazing Race has been in Russia.  While in Russia, they had challenges that took place in libraries, university, athletic centers and theatres.  You can tell it must be really cold outside cuz they're keeping everybody inside most of the time.  The twins, Chippendales guys and the white couple seem to not like the other white couple and connive against them.  Awww...the unliked white couple girl cries a lot about it too.   The long hair lawyer/rockers really ran into bad luck w/ their cab driver leaving w/ their bags that had 1 guy's passport.  That's the kiss of death in this game.  The unliked couple buddied up w/ the goat farmers who really lagged behind until the white couple missed their flight and found themselves w/ the goat farmers.  It got weird cuz all of a sudden, they weren't so competitive anymore and actually decided to wait for the guys to finish their tasks.  That was dumb because time means everything in this race.  In the next leg, they got u-turned.  The group of 3 teams had a really great plan.  Those twins are soooo smart.  The first team would u-turn the unliked couple and then the next team would u-turn that first team to use up the double u-turn.  If the unliked couple hadn't ran the race parallel w/ the goat farmers, they would've had time to complete both parts of the detour but nope the goat farmers finally hit the mat before them.  The wussy part was, they felt bad that they had to leave their friends behind.  Awww...WTF?  Are you in the game or what?  I'm loving those Chippendale's guys more and more each week.  They're hilarious and fun.  I had no idea one had a bum ankle in the race so they're not whiners either.  Go dudes!

Chef Race UK vs USA has finally landed on the East Coast.  They're down to 2 guys on each team.  I love that the most hated chefs are still in it but that's the way nature works too.  The predator willing to take down everybody else eats best.  The show has become predictable.  They edit and comment to make one team seem like they're going to win the first challenge and the other team wins.  Then at the cook-off, they edit it so the judges rave about one guy and sound like they're giving a bad critique to the other and then the guy w/ the bad review wins and the guy they seemed to like goes home.  Now all I do is roll my eyes and correctly predict the outcome.  I'm still giving the edge to the US team and I think Cody will win it because of the homefield advantage, his great palate and his competitiveness.  I love the crabby English guy.  He's not there to make friends.  He's there to cook and win.  You go Dude!

On Survivor, we have the group w/ the jury members.  People are finding it's not a good idea to turn on your own people.  Jeff tried to oust Jonathan and found himself booted.  The Yellow tribe booted RC and are now finding themselves on the bottom of the ladder.  Pete and Abi Maria are getting their come-uppance.  Each week Lisa declares she's not good at this game.  Ha!  She's great and plays the innocent girl very well.  I'm glad to see Michael Skupin playing smart.  He plays low key and flips when he needs to.  He and Lisa went to Jonathan first to make an end alliance.  He said he wanted to wait and see.  Wow!  Really?  He lost a great opportunity there because Mike and Lisa then went to Malcolm and Denise to make the end alliance.  I think they really just wanted Malcolm but Denise was there.  There seems to be a funny pattern.  The person voted out has always had the luxury challenge prize the day before.  Meanwhile, Carter sits around like the retarded doofus he looks like.  The Ponderosa scenes are just as fun to watch w/ RC not shy about showing her animosity toward her old tribe mates.  You go Girl!

The Challenge: Battle of the Seasons has finally gotten more exciting.  Team Brooklyn finally realized Sarah couldn't do everything herself and have become the power team.  I love Sarah, she's nice, personable, funny, fun and has that gung ho attitude but is still nice about it.  She's gracious losing or winning.  They've played smart too.  They had a puzzle that had to be replicated at another area quite a rough distance away.  They were the only team to put it together while they had the solution in sight and then transported the pieces in order.  The funny part was, there were extra pieces so the teams who just took off w/ all the pieces were quite confused at the other end.  Alton seems to have forgotten how these challenges  are.  You live w/ everybody, compete and then kick them off one by one.  He complains about living w/ the people and wants to go home but his team keeps him there.  It seems when the teams get cut in half, it's not long before the other half goes too.  Team San Diego keeps putting up the same guy to compete in the Arena and he's not liking it.  I can't wait for him to give his teammates the big finger.  You go Dude!

Top Chef: Seattle has a great bunch of chefs.  They've also brought back 3 vets and one is Stefan.  He's just as brashy big ego as ever.  I love it.  I just think he's totally sexy.  Maybe it's that Swedish accent too.  I like that the vets are proving they're not as great as people think.  They landed in the bottom their first week but they do show their experience in the quickfires.  The other male chefs seem to be too nice.  The women are tough and don't want to seem pansy.  The cooking seems to be pretty good too because the bottom dishes have to be nitpicked.  The newbies better take a lesson from the vets and stop helping each other and concentrate on doing their dishes the best.  I've seen some real kitchens.  I want to hear some cursing people!

Project Runway Allstars had a crazy USA Today promotional episode.  The designers had to do a look based on a picture from...oh who the crap cares?  This was the lamest premise I've seen on the show.  The designers didn't know if they had to incorporate the colors in the photo, the theme, or the feeling?  Oy.  I have to say, the designers just put their heads down and did the task as best they could.  Once again, Casanova was robbed.  Althea made pants that had a crazy crotch.  They were perfect for a drag queen to hide his weenie in the folds.  Kayne seems to have lost his sight because he turns out some seriously ugly stuff.  But...this time, Andre ran out of luck.  Anthony Ryan won again and I didn't really see anything special in his look.  Oh well, what do I know? 

Top Model had their finale.  This time they had 3 girls in the final runway.  That was weird and made the final judging long and crowded.  I loved that none of the girls really liked each other much.  The final fashion show was really weird w/ clothes that looked like aged grave cloths or iguana skins.  Ick.  Then they showed the final photoshoots at the final runway show.  I loved the fight ugly Cutrone had w/ the photographer.  She was imploring people, "Tell him not to treat me that way."  He was standing right there too.  Hilarious!  Leila had a mighty fall on the runway and then literally stumbled right off the runway.  Double hilarious!!!  Laura stumped down the runway and Kiara had a great walk.  I've never seen so much crying backstage.  Yeesh.  I loved seeing John James.  He's gotten older but it's nice to see actors are human and don't always age glamorously.  In the end, the judging was stupid as usual but Laura won.  Huh?  What do I know?  Oh yeah, she was the tallest girl.

The Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders:  Making the Team finally ended their season.  The last few episodes were kind of boring cuz the competition was over.  After that, it was just a love fest.  Ick.  The last episode had the girls trying to be real cheerleaders w/ a show w/ stunting and that kind of choreography.  Oh!  I see.  The DCC are dancers and not really cheerleaders.

Redneck Island continues to be hilarious.  The really funny thing is, they seem to be the most competitive but I think these people truly need the money and don't hide that fact.  The games always seem to have a dangerous ouch factor.  I loved the rednecks in liederhosen trying to carry glasses of beer across a slippery surface.  There was much hitting of rumps and banging of heads on the ground.  It was very cringeworthy but funny.  None of the competitors complained or hesitated in the game.  I'm very proud to see the rednecks voting smartly.  They target anyone they think isn't really in the game or weak.  Right now, that's the way to go.  While you're in big teams, vote off your weakest links.  I like that they vote off the people who whine, "I miss my family and want to go home."  Yeesh.  They didn't think they'd be away from their family?  Do they realize they'll go home when the game is over?  Bye, ya big wussbags.

Well, that's about it.  The Christmas season is here.  Lifetime and Hallmark always have great Christmas movies.  I especially love the ones based on A Christmas Carol or It's a Wonderful Life.  This season seems to be more about romance which is kind of sappy and icky.  Oh well.  Happy Holidays anyway.  Until next time people, stay tuned.

Catching Up

Ok, so I missed a week or so.  Guess what, I have a real life where I actually make a living.  This blog is going to be different.  I'm still going to go through my shows but since I missed keeping you up to date for a week, I'll do a run through.

The Amazing Race seems to like to stay in the same country for a couple of episodes.  It may be a sign of the economy because it's cheaper than purchasing those plane tickets every other day.  The racers show less fatigue too because they don't have to fight jet lag as much.  So far they've been in the Philippines and then Turkey.  They had one non-elimination leg which kept the goat farmers in the race.  I wish those guys would stop reminding us of their poor little lives trying to raise goats.  Then they mention they saved their town.  I'm not sure how that happened but whatever.  The Monster truck couple kept trying to go against the flow and got caught by it by taking a flight nobody else took.  Yeah, this time it wasn't in their favor.  I was hoping the Monster truck couple would be the only one in the next country for a few hours.  Oh well.  Needless to say, even though the goat farmers had a speed bump to do, the Monster truck couple still came in last and were out of the race.  That time, it was kind of hard for the editors to make the end a mystery as to who came in last.  The goat farmers and the Monster truck couple did the same delivering baked goods detour.  The goat farmers were finishing up when the Monster truck couple were starting.  Yep, no mystery there.  Meanwhile, the other racers were hauling long bamboo.  It was hilarious w/ much whacking of people w/ the bamboo and many apologies.  In Turkey, some of the racers had a turkish bath that was the funniest thing to watch ever.  The twins are amazing in this race.  They've been doing some of the most physical tasks and doing great at them.  There seems to be some kind of grudge w/ the twins and one white couple toward the other white couple.  I finally figured out, the white couple who's not liked is the one that could win 2 mill if they win.  In the last episode, the teams went to Russia.  I loved how they complained about the cold more than the heat in the last legs.  Maybe it was editing.  This time the goat farmers and the unliked white couple got way behind because of a missed plane.  Oh boy!  I'm noticing there don't seem to be as many airlines and flights as other seasons but there are always plenty of seats.  Or so it seems.  Once again, the tasks weren't anything tourists would want to do.  It was hilarious to see the guys trying to do the synchronized swimming.  It reminded me of that Saturday Night Live sketch a long time ago.  Those Chippendales guys are getting cuter by the week.  They seem to be overcoming their meathead image w/ good senses of humor, niceness and gung ho spirit.  The long haired lawyer/rockers are in the crapper.  Their cab driver drove off w/ their belongings which included a guy's passport.  OMG!  The episode ended w/ no elimination.  We'll see what happens.  The race staying in countries longer may work to their advantage.

Face Off had an awesome ending.  The last 3 standing were Nicole, Laura and Derek.  They picked 2 past eliminated artists to make their teams and then they had to make a fantasy witch and demon.  But wait, the makeup really had to be well done because then those models participated in a stuntshow.  It was so cool but the makeups had to last through crashmats, punches, flipping, swinging on ropes and rolling on the ground.  OMG!  All I can say is, all the makeups were really cool.  Yes, we got the stupid sob stories about why each finalist thought they should win blah blah blah.  Michael Westmore showed up to critique the work the artists were doing.  It's always so cool to see him.  It's like a visit from the king.  They had a reunion show that basically asked everyone what their favorite challenge was which proved the fans were pretty unoriginal.  I'm still wondering if the artists knew the brothers were twins.  Finally, Nicole was declared the winner.  I kind of thought she had the edge w/ Roy on her team w/ his knowledge and experience.

Survivor finally had their merge and the blue tribe of 2 was able to glom back together.  Denise seems to be letting Malcolm lead her around.  The pattern for the challenges, so far, seems to be teams for the luxury and individual for elimination.  The first week of the merge, there was a female and a male winner.  The yellow team seems to be divided and the men of the red team still want Johnathan out.  There were a lot of candidates for the vote but none that I wanted.  Abi Maria is totally detestable and that sometimes means she'll go all the way to the end cuz everybody else knows they're less hated and more respected than she is.  At that first tribal w/ everyone, there were a lot of red herrings thrown around.  Lisa is finding more of a voice and Skupin looked like total weenie.  Johnathan wisely used his HII and RC was voted out.  How come nobody liked her?  Maybe it was her laugh cuz I found it totally annoying on the Ponderosa video.  Last week  Johnathan won the luxury challenge w/ some good people and the B team (bitches and bastards) were left to lay around and grouse at camp.  Hee hee hee.  Gawd, how I hate that Abi Maria and Pete's looking quite detestable too.  Johnathan felt the pressure and stated that he was going to win immunity.  Guess what?  He was right.  That guy's really good at puzzles.   Lisa's trying to run some of the game and it's working a little.  Pete tried to make her look like a liar but at tribal council, it was proved she was right and Pete's a liar.  Haw haw.  We'll see how that works in the next episodes.  Malcolm was put on the chopping block but he announced to everyone before the vote that he was going to use it that night.  He was really smart because that scared people into not voting for him and he didn't play it.  Abi Maria showed everyone her HII.  Now I know why Pete kisses her butt.  Jeff was totally blindsided and voted out.  Next, I hope that crosseyed rat faced blonde guy goes.  He's so homely, I can't hardly take it anymore.

Chef Race:  UK vs. USA headed West.  They had to do BBQ sauce and sell it.  The USA team was savy and sold to stores in cases.  The UK team charged more for their sauce and gave it a kick ass name.  Yep, they won and the USA team was whittled down to just 3 after the final cooking challenge.  Then they had to make pizzas and sell them.  Cody drove his team crazy w/ his laziness but they can't do anything about it as long as he cooks like a champ.   I was wary about the UK teams pizzas cuz they put their cheese on the pizzas in cubes.  Obviously, they didn't know how much Americans like cheese on their pizzas.  The USA team did a better job selling whole pies.  The UK team must be slow in moving the customers.  Maybe they need to stop chatting people up.  I never knew Brits were such yappers.  The USA team won and the UK team was down to 3 also. 

Project Runway Allstars has all the designers getting along but sniping about each other behind their backs.  This season, I find that Casanova is getting robbed.  I've been loving his designs and he hasn't won.  Anthony Ryan seems to be the judges' darling and he keeps making sheath dresses.  Whatever!  One challenge was using 70's type high heels for inspiration.  That ugly chick from the first season made a pre-teen hooker outfit and got the boot.  We found she and Suede bonded; Ew!  Good for them.  Last week the designers had to make graffiti designs.  The show tried to make it sound posh by calling it aerosol art.  Yeah right.  Does that include beehive hairdos and armpits too?  I don't know how Andrae survived this elimination cuz his outfit looked totally like circus clown on Meth.  In the end, Suede joined his BFF in the eliminated group.  I don't know why, but I'm really liking the judges.

America's Next Top Model took the girls to Jamaica.  Does Jamaica have fashion?  I think it was a cheap place to go to.  Leala is back and more fierce than ever.  The bitchy white girl got the boot finally and so did the skinny girl w/ the curly hair.  Laura runs hot and cold and Kiara seems to be getting better and better each week.  They did a shoot w/ the stupid perfume and one on horses.  I still hate the judges on either side of Tyra and that stupid You Tube ugly hippie looking guy keeps showing up.  Ick.  The show is more annoying than cool so I mostly watch it online so I can watch TV while I'm watching some of the show.

The Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders are chosen so now we just get stuff like shooting the swimsuit calendar.  Those girls need some walking lessons.  They had a swimsuit fashion show and they either looked like little old ladies missing their walkers or horses and not in a good way.  I find it funny that Kellie Finglass is always saying she wants the girls to come off as All American classy but they barely have any clothes on in public.  I really liked the dietician going to the girls' homes and finding everything from candy to cookies to frozen chimichangas in the freezers.  Hilarious!  Then again, the dietician also gave them a hard time for frozen vegetables too.  Really?  Anyway,the show's not as interesting now that the competition is over.

CMT has a show called Red Neck Island.  I thought it would be something like Survivor.  It's not hard living at all.  The rednecks have an already built shelter, a bar, hammocks, luggage w/ clothes, an outhouse and food.  The only things they don't have are phones, tv's and computers.  The games are rednecky games which are funny to watch but dangerous to do.  They really need to put that, "Do not try this at home." warning on the screen.  I love the vote cuz they write names on cozies on beer cans and then put them in a cooler.  The lady who had told everyone she wanted to go home and then changed her mind was sent home.  Yeah.  Who wants to listen to that again next week?  Those rednecks aren't as dumb as they look.

Well, that's that.  I love this season because Hallmark and Lifetime have really cheesy holiday movies that make me cry like a baby.  Yep.  I'm a schmuck.  Until next time people, stay tuned.

Lady Luck Weighs In

Hello everybody.  Due to having to make financial cutbacks, I've had to downgrade my satellite package.  Therefore, I get less channels.  Don't be surprised if I don't write on some shows but I'm finding, I'm not missing the reality shows that I really like.  The new season hasn't quite gotten into full swing.  I still wonder why some shows don't return until November. 

The Amazing Race went to Bangladesh.  Everybody made it onto the same plane.  I guess out of country flights aren't so plentiful out of Indonesia.  At the airport, some teams got a jump on others by using the taxi dispatch.  Wow!  Whoda thunk it?  Usually, it's better to do the NY style whistle and yell for a taxi but not this time.  The Roadblock had 1 team member doing autobody work on a bus.  They had a large area of the side of the bus that they had to spackle and sand.  Then they had to haul 4 seats out of the bus to an area.  All the co-ed teams had their men do the task but the twins really showed up the guys by getting it done in good time.  The twin cheering on the other one really drove the other people nuts but it's probably because they were hot and tired.  I thought it was hilarious because I love the twins' accents.  The Monster truck guy had a good advantage because he repairs bodies of trucks.  I don't know why, but I think this couple is really cool and find myself rooting for them when the other teams seem to diss them a lot.  There was also a fast forward offered and shockingly enough, the first teams didn't go for it.  Really?  Do they know they only have to do 1 task vs. 2?  The long hair don't care lawyers went for it.  The fast forward consisted of gathering dead rats from 4 different places.  Ew!  I LOL when the laywers said they were used to working w/ rats.  Ha ha ha  Love it!  After the roadblock, the teams made their way to a market stall w/ dried fish in huge bags.  They had to find the red fish in the bag.  I have a feeling each team got a new bag because they seemed to find it pretty quickly.  Either that or the little guy manning the stall put a new red fish in the bags where it was found.  The detour gave the choice of pounding metal or cotton.  The teams could either make a huge spike by pounding the hot metal or make mattresses by pounding a pile of cotton to fluff it.  The twins continue to surprise me in a good way by choosing the tasks that might seem not so suited for them and then really banging them out (no pun intended).  They did the pounding metal and finished it in good time.  Meanwhile, the long hair lawyers finish their fast forward and hit the finish mat first.  Duh.  I don't know why the 2nd place couple were surprised they weren't first.  They didn't notice the lawyers didn't do the first task?  I'm thinking more brawn than brains in the white couples.  This time tall/small ran out of luck and came in last.  I'm not sure where the hold up was except that they were really lame in the autobody repair task.  Oh well.  Bye!  See you at the finish line.

Face Off was down to 4 artists and what a final four.  These people have been really impressive all season.  The challenge this week had the artists doing a kind of Grimm scenario makeup.  They first found a crime scene and had to speculate what kind of creature did the murder.  I was wondering who did the makeup of the murder victims because it was quite good.  Did they really have to have the victims w/ open dead eyes?  We don't need that much reality in this kind of show.  They must've had a rule that they had to stick w/ the first crime scene they found because Derek didn't like the creature he had to do but he didn't go looking for another crime scene.  Grimm creatures all are creatures that have human bodies but the heads are the creatures.  This time, the whole body makeup that Roy likes to do wasn't necessary.  I'm guessing the artists weren't that familiar w/ the show.  Nicole made an incredible wolf face.  Derek's bird guy was kind of sparse on the feathers.  Laura made a scary bug like makeup.  Roy made a lizardy creature.  The judges even commented that all the looks were really good but Roy made a mistake in using a wig which proves he's not gay ha ha ha.  Laura won and Roy was sent home.  Not Roy!  Noooo...  Next week is the finale.  Ooh, ooh,  I can't wait!

The BBCA has a reality show on right now called Chef Race:  UK vs US.  It's kind of fun but it's definitely produced by Brits because you can see the production value is different.  The hosts are relatively unknown and they utilize outdoor sets and natural lighting.  Also, they like to show a lot of verbal fighting.  The teams are in the USA which I think is kind of unfair since British and American palates are quite different.  In the first few shows, the UK team would lose the challenges and then they put up 2 or 3 chefs from their team to cook against each other and the one w/ the worst dish would go home.  So, needless to say, the UK team was getting quite whittled down.  This week, the UK team got to take a chef from the US team.  They chose Bianca because she was the only one they didn't have something bad to say about.  Really?  Not Cody?  Hee hee.  So the teams all had to sell food out of food trucks.  1 for each team.  It was good the UK team had an American on their team because she was able to keep the food sellable.  The US team had high pricepoints but probably too high for a food truck and for where they were (Tennessee).  In the end, the UK team made the most money.  The US team put up 3 guys.  One of which had to be hospitalized for dehydration and heat exhaustion earlier in the day.  That was so nice of them.  After the cooking of fish and oysters, tasting and critiquing, the black guy w/ blonde hair was sent home.  Bye!  Wait, it was supposed to be a double elimination and the other 2 guys were tied.  Really?  They were given 15 minutes to make another bite of a dish.  Oy!  Cody came out on top and the Cuban guy was sent home.  Bye!  How funny is it that the team is left w/ the guy nobody on either team can stand.  LOL!  You know the producers made the judges keep Cody.

Survivor showed the tribes starving and standing around complaining about it.  It seemed Skupin had been scoopin' up the rice right into his mouth eating it raw.  Ok, I'd like to ask, why don't people forage for food?  Here's a good rule, whatever those monkeys in the trees are eating, you can eat.  I did notice there doesn't seem to be coconut trees like we've been used to seeing in other seasons of Survivor but they are right on the beach.  There's no seaweed, kelp, crabs, or insects?  What season of the year is this?  Are the Survivors not allowed to wander the jungle or whatever the terrain is?  We really don't see them going far into the trees much.  I don't think that's fair for a show like this.  If you were stranded on an island, there wouldn't be any restrictions on where you could go to find food and resources.  Also, doesn't each team have fishing gear?  Okay, so on to the luxury challenge.  The teams had to play get the huge sphere in your goal.  The game came to a  huge stall when the players found they were too weak to push the big sphere when the other guy was leaning on it.  Yeah, this game may have been better suited for the earlier days when the Survivors weren't so weak and hungry.  I have to say though, some players have a lot of heart and gut it out (Lisa and Denise).  So after an hour of no progress and everybody over the whole thing, Skupin and Penner make a deal.  The red tribe would give the yellow tribe all their rice and the yellow team would let the red team win the prize.  The prize was a picnic w/ huge sandwiches.  Of course, the only people on the yellow team not going for it were the 2 dorks on the mat waiting to play their round.  So the producers let the deal happen.  The yellow team ended up w/ a bag of rice that was just as small as their's and the red team ended up w/ full bellies for only 1 day.  We finally got to see the winning team enjoy their prize which they also found included letters from home.  Penner had said he could catch fish.  He did.  Unfortunately, they were size of credit cards.  He tried to do the Jesus thing and break them up to seem like more but it didn't work.  My question is, why is Penner the only one trying to find food.  These people are just as stupid as they are pathetic.  Also, that white guy w/ the monkey face is getting homelier by the day.  For the immunity challenge, the teams had to play catch the ball in your net shot from a slingshot.  I would say the hero of the day was Lisa who was manning the slingshot.  When Skupin told her to shoot to someone, she did.  Wow!  Somebody search her backpack.  She's got protein bars or something in there.  In the end, the yellow team won and the red team was sent to tribal council again.  Before the tribal council there was a lot of vote planning and scheming but it's obvious the men are playing smart and kicking out their weakest links.  At tribal, there was talk about the food decision and the obvious game play of making friends and then kicking them off; blah blah blah.  In the end, the beauty queen was sent home.  Bye!

On The Challenge:  Battle of the Seasons, they showed the young people enjoying themselves except Alton.  For some reason, the young guys were trying to pick fights w/ him and kind of being bullies.  You could see on Alton's face, he was thinking he's too old for this.  It does seem quite stupidly immature to bother someone on purpose when they're not bothering anybody else.  It seems like envy or something.  For the challenge, the teams had to do a series of events.  The first was a chariot race w/ 1 guy pulling the whole team w/ a horse mask on.  It was really funny to watch w/ the guys running into each other, falling and not able to get up.  Hee hee hee  For the next event, a girl hurled eggs over a wall while a guy caught them in a dog collar/cone.  Even funnier!  Finally, the top 2 teams jousted in their chariots.  Team San Diego seemed to have the advantage w/ only 2 team members which made the chariot a lot lighter when the team was in it.  San Diego proved they deserved to be in the game and pulled out the win.  I'm not sure who the losing team was but it was one of the younger ones; maybe St. Thomas.  Then Alton did something really dumb.  He told a guy to tell the San Diego team he wanted his team to go to the arena.  Really?  I'm sure the rest of the team didn't want that.  Even weirder, he didn't put himself in the arena, because of course San Diego obliged the request.  The arena game was that strategy thing w/ the long rope in the jungle gym and tangling and untangling it.  Las Vegas pulled out the win.  I think Nany's anger at Alton really propelled her a lot.  This is getting really interesting because that makes 2 teams of only 2 team members.  Cool!  Meanwhile, Alton's still there.  Who knows what he's going to do but it's disappointing to see him caving in to the bullies.

Project Runway Allstars returned w/ a whole new bunch of vets.  Ivy seemed more mellow.  Andre wasn't a huge crybaby.  Wendy was just as homely as ever.  Kayne seemed to get more cool.  And the rest were the rest.  For the first challenge, the designers split into 2 teams to do collections.  They were chosen by schoolyard pick and Wendy ended up as the cheese, standing alone ha ha ha.  Her reputation really did precede her and the designers had good memories.  Each designer was responsible for their own look in the collection so it wasn't really a team challenge.  One team's collection looked black and blue and the other team's looked black and white.  There was the visit to mood, a little work shown, the visit by Joanna Coles and then the runway.  I was interested to see Aminat from Top Model in the show.  She has a great walk but a dead face as usual.   Anyway, Mondo was the guest judge and seemed to contradict the opinions of the other judges a lot.  The black and white collection team were declared the winners.  Andre made a cute quirky outfit and the judges hated it.  Peach who was know for her good sewing skills landed in the bottom w/ an illfitting dress that was quite plain too.  Suede who was still talking about himself in the 3rd person landed in the bottom w/ his handkerchief skirt dress; sooo 10 years ago.  Anthony Ryan, Ivy and Casanova were the tops.  Anthony Ryan was declared the winner w/ his sexy back top and white trousers.  Peach was given the boot and rightly so.  I think she knew it too because she took it well.  I'm very excited for the rest of the season.

Ok, so I know I didn't watch Top Model.  I got really mad at that show for last week's stunt.  Also, NBC debuted a new show that sounded cool:  Mockingbird Lane.  See my review on it at tvjunkiejantina.hubpages.com and you can decide if you want to watch it or not.  I'm really enjoying the Halloween episodes of my favorite shows.  The Middle, The Big Bang Theory and Modern Family were really hilarious.  Well, keep watching and until next time, stay tuned.

Fun Shows and a Finale

The competition reality shows are rolling.  I see a lot of different opinions about the shows on Facebook but not as many as there used to be.  Is it possible people are tiring of reality shows?  Maybe they've run out of ideas.  All I know is, I'm still watching but have to admit, I see a lot of repeating of stunts and challenges.  Maybe the real art of reality TV is figuring out how to be original after 10 seasons.

The Amazing Race was in Indonesia again.  This time the roadblock involved one person carrying 20 dishes of food and placing them all safely on the table.  The real hiccup in the race was the taksis trying to find the restaurant.  I was impressed w/ the racers because very few dropped their dishes but when they did, it was hilarious.  What you didn't see was the poor person who had to clean up the mess.  Then the racers had to hop a train to the next place.  Of course, that staggered the teams more.  One team was just finishing purchasing their tickets when the train pulled away.  They got their clue to the next place from a vendor on the train.  The racers pounced on each one asking,"Do you have a clue?"  Those poor guys.  Most couldn't speak English so were quite taken aback.  The clue notified the racers of an anonymous double U-turn.  Oh boy!  I was thinking, maybe now we'll see some action.  Since a U-turn is a great delay tactic, I would think all of the teams would utilize it not just to delay teams from getting to the finish mat but to delay their starts for the next leg of the race.  When they got off the train, the detour was a choice of either putting on huge costumes w/ big heads that they held in place w/ their teeth.  Ick!  Then they had to parade w/ people down streets and do some dance moves periodically.  This is what I call the dum dum task because it takes no skills and yet will probably take the same amount of time for each team to complete.  The other choice was, the teams had to pick up 4 eggs from a vendor, bring them back and have them scrambled in a pan over a fire held on the head of one of the racers.  Oh boy!  Then the team had to eat them.  In this kind of task, the teams can alter their time w/ speed.  Since it was only 4 eggs, it wasn't that hard.  I would've thought the teams would've picked the eggs since it was also free food.  The long hair don't care team was the only team to pick the eggs.  Then the teams found the double U-turn sign.  The double means 2 teams can be U-turned.  That's dumb.  Why only 2?  Whatever.  So team after team stepped up and declared they're not using it.  Boring!  People say it's because they don't want to make enemies.  Really?  It's anonymous and the racers can't respect each other to realize it's a competitive move?  The only team to use it was the Monster Truck couple and they u-turned the tall/small sub teachers guys team.  Luckily for the tall/small team, the 2 blonde girls were having a heckuva time w/ their transport guy.  The racers weren't in car taksis but in bicycle taxi things w/ the people riding in a huge seat in front.   The tall/small team had to do the egg cooking thing and while they were at it, the blonde girls arrived and ran around the area looking for the finish mat.  Did they not recognize their fellow racers?  Did they think that was the pitstop and they were having dinner?  So needless to say, the very last racers were literally racing side by side to the finish mat until they hit a fork in the road.  The blondes' bike taxi went left and the tall/small team's bike taxi went right.  Right it was and the tall/small team lived to race another leg.  What a finish!  What great luck!  Bye bye blondes.  See you in the finale episode.  Oh and that white young couple hit the mat first.  No not that young white couple, the other one.

Face Off still had 5 artists.  This time the challenge took the artists to a junkyard.  They were told they had to make humanoid robots like Terminator, using items from the junkyard.  The artists proceeded to throw all kinds of stuff into their shopping carts reminding me of homeless people who have snuck into the yard.  None of the artists seemed to gather things w/ any real look in mind.  Sarah started w/ the excuse that she was raised Mennonite and didn't know Terminator or robotic humans.  Really?  Are you still living at home?  Have you not studied stuff pertaining to your career?  Isn't she dating Ian from last season?  I'm sure they've rented videos or seen other Sci Fi stuff on TV.  Didn't she even watch his season?  Well, if not, then I figured she oughtta pack her bags.  So everyone proceeded to the workroom and started on their looks.  I loved the back stories they gave their people.  Of course Roy was amazing and did the whole body prosthetic thing again.  He worked on a jaw that opened and closed electronically.  Uh oh...  He never has much luck when it comes to stuff like that.  Sarah was bemoaning the fact that her person looked like a mechanical mish mosh.  I was thinking she should go for a Frankensteiny human thing.  Derek stuck a flashing thing w/ wires to his person's chest.  Laura's model got sick in the chair taking up her time but she pulled it out.  Nicole's look resembled a borg w/out all the tubes everywhere.  It looked like Star Trek makeup and really well done.  Nicole was declared the winner and Sarah got the boot.  This time, you could really tell Sarah's look didn't look pro at all like the other looks and the ouster was deserved.  Maybe she was overly fatigued and couldn't think anymore.  Oh well. 

Survivor showed the teams trying to survive the rain.  The blue team of 2 people looked like 2 lonely drowned rats.  Finally, they got off their duffs and searched for the HII and after many camera shots of it, I think they got the hint and found it.  I'm thinking that camera guy got tired of the game and practically pointed out the HII to them because dude lady and long haired guy looked in, under, and around that rice container.  Finally long hair Malcolm swiped at the box w/ the machete which knocked the HII off the top.  OMG, that was frustrating.  So then the tribes came together in front of Probst where he told the blue team they were to be split up and placed on the other teams.  Instead of the dramatic picking of the buffs, they could've just flipped a coin.  It was only 2 people.  Anyway, Malcolm went to the yellow tribe and dude lady Denise went to the red tribe and they proceeded right to a luxury challenge.  Yay!  It consisted of 1 player from a team trying to knock a statuette off of the hand held platform of the other team's player.  They went one by one.  When the teams learned it really depended on who's statuette hit the ground first, Skupin came up w/ a brilliant move to throw his statuette high into the air while simultaneously batting the other guy's statuette right to the ground.  After that, everybody tried the tactic.  Abi Maria had to compete for once and was all whiny about getting her hair pulled.  Awww...  Ok, so the yellow team pulled out the big V w/ Malcolm being the hero of the day.  The prize was all the stuff to make coffee and a huge platter of pastries.  Did we get to see the team enjoy the prize?  No.  Oh come on!  So back at red camp the people were trying to survive the rain.  The skinny blonde pierced chick fell ill.  So much that she finally had to quit the game.  Johnathan had much empathy for her.  Awww...  Meanwhile, at yellow camp, Abi Maria is being mean.  What else is new?  For the immunity challenge, the teams had to navigate a short obstacle course, chop a rope to release big painted sticks.  Some of the painted sticks had letters on them and they had to gather only those and then unscramble the letters to make a phrase.  The beauty queen on the red team couldn't get her feet under her and really held them up.  Yellow team w/ Abi Maria sitting out again, sailed through to the letter unscramble.  I think when the other team is right beside you and has the same words to unscramble; you probably shouldn't shout out the answer.  It helped, but not enough and yellow team pulled out the big win again.  At camp, the red team really showed it was men against women.  Denise wisely joined the men and the 2 remaining ladies were left in the cold; literally.  Everybody pointed at the beauty queen.  Mr. Baseball realized the black chick on the team could blow his pro cover and suggested her to go.  Red team went to Tribal council for the first time.  Probst seemed to be getting tired of trying to pull stuff out of the survivors and everybody seemed really tired.  People are tending to keep stuff under their hats better this season.  It must be frustrating for the editing crew to have no footage.  Hee hee hee  So on to the vote.  The black chick was blindsided completely and had the creepiest torch snuffing I've ever seen.  She stared at Probst while he was snuffing out her torch and then proceeded to lay a long hard kiss on him after.  Ew...  Even Probst was in shock.  I was really in shock to see everybody voted for her.  Even her friend the beauty queen.   You could tell she wasn't expecting it cuz she didn't have her backpack w/ her.  I guess the former blue team members aren't such big sitting ducks as I thought.

The Challenge:  Battle of the Seasons started out at the arena w/ the Brooklyn team against the Fresh Meat team.  Devyn and not Chet vs. fatty Eric and ugly Camilla.  The game was mental and the teams each had to solve a memory puzzle.  The girl would be at the puzzle in a harness being lifted into the air by how far the guy could descend into a vat of water.  It was fun to watch Camilla get frustrated w/ Eric, yell at him, Eric give up and Camilla really verbally letting him have it between the eyes.  OMG!  It was good she was in the harness cuz I think she probably would've scratched his eyes out.  So thus was the complete demise of the Fresh Meat team.  On to the challenge.  It consisted of a trivia contest w/ one person from each team sitting in chairs.  When they answered wrong, they were unceremoniously dumped into the sea.  It was hilarious but probably a bit painful for the players.  Trishelle had to be medically treated for dehydration so didn't help her team.  Maybe she should drink something other than alcohol.  I can't remember who won but I know it wasn't Brooklyn, Cancun or Las Vegas.  The bottom team was a really young team who I have no idea who they are.  Brooklyn was thrown into the arena once again.  How come nobody likes Brooklyn?  This time the game was endurance which is the pushing the balls to the other team's side.  All I can say is, the couple playing against Sarah and Chet were a tall thin gay black guy and a blonde chick who didn't try that hard.  Guess who won.  Yep, Sarah and Chet are really showing their stuff.  You go people!

Project Runway had it's finale.  Since the judges weren't that impressed by the mini show the designers gave them in the last episode, they were given more money to buy material and told to rev up things.  I loved all the cute shots of Swatch at Mood.  Awww...he's adorable.  Melissa seemed to be the only designer to make a whole new look for her collection but it was just her same high collared dress in bright orange.  Then the usual model picking, fitting, last minute sewing, styling, etc.  was shown.  I could've sworn I heard a designer complain models were too small for his clothes.  Really?  A model too skinny?  Whoda thunk it?  Fabio and Christopher lost their dumb wigs but Fabio stuck w/ his dumb shoes.  No big drama like going overbudget or cheating.  Onto the runway show.  Dmitry's collection looked really cool but started to look all black and white until he showed some good pops of yellow.  It was innovative and chic.  Christopher's collection had that weird mud colored x-ray print.  He cut down on it and everything he put w/ it looked dark and simple.  he had a couple of innovative pieces but why no bright color?  It looked like a fancy funeral collection.  Zzzz...  Maybe he was a one way monkey ha ha ha.  Fabio was next w/ his watercolor skimpy resort clothes.  It looked like some weird cult collection but it was innovative and refreshing.  Melissa showed us her collection of looks she made during the season but in different colors.  Most of her collection was black and white too.  Was that a bathing suit I saw?  Jennifer Hudson was the last guest judge.  Didn't she do that another season?  So the judges argued the good and the bad of each designer's collection.  The editors have adopted the Chopped way of judging.  First the judges say how much they like the collection but...  Then they proceed to say what they thought was hideous, boring, cheap or ill fitting.  After all the hashing and rehashing, Dmitry was declared the winner.  Awww...he was so cute and gracious about it too.  Yay! 

I think I've been forgetting to tell about The Dallas Cheerleaders: Making the Team.  The girls have gone through boot camp w/ some girls surprised to be sent home and some girls not surprised to be sent home.  It was interesting to see how mirrors, space and proximity to other dancers affected the girls in their performance.  This week, was the final week for Kelly and Judy to decide the team.  They told us they had 37 lockers and 39 girls.  Hm...  The girls did some more practice on the field and then gathered round.  No girls were eliminated and there are 39 girls on the team.  Well, that was... unexciting.  Then they showed the photoshoot for the the whole team picture.  Finally they showed game day.  I didn't see any major mistakes or mishaps and the fans always love the DCC.  I was very surprised to find, this was not to be the last episode of the season.  That means the show has changed from competition to voyeuristic.  I wonder how many episodes are in the can?  The DCC girls are so nice to each other, they're kind of boring if nobody gets eliminated anymore.  I love when they have facebook scandal and Kelli calls them on it.  Hee hee.  I'm just wicked that way.

America's Next Top Model had the girls go on go sees.  They went in pairs to different designers.  Each designer would choose to hire 1 girl but each girl could be chosen by more than 1 designer.  I was more impressed by how well the girls got from place to place in such a timely manner.  That was good driving in L.A.  The tall basketball girl bragged about playing basketball and her walk.  The redhead shorthaired girl was shy and looked like a deer caught in the headlights.  Victoria thought outgoing personality meant interrupting and talking over people in an annoying nasal voice.  Also, she walked like her feet were too heavy.  Meangirl Kristen did good in her first go see and then you could tell she was over it.  Curly haired superskinny girl seemed a little scatterbrained but she was with Laura who was all put together.  I was surprised to hear a couple of designers say the 2 skinniest girls were too small for their clothes.  Really?  I didn't think those words existed in the world of modeling.  All the girls made it back in time.  The only girls not chosen by 1 designer were the red short haired girl and Victoria.  I guess she was more annoying than outgoing ha ha ha.  2 designers picked Laura and she was the winner of the challenge.  She won a pile of designer clothes which made the green eyed monster come out in Kristen.  For the photoshoot, the girls did mugshots in a prison.  I thought they were more funny than fashion but oh well.  In the judging, Tyra seemed to contradict all the other judges.  What was up w/ that?  Laura was declared the winner of this photoshoot and the 2 girls who didn't get picked by a designer at the go sees were in the bottom.  For some odd reason, Victoria was liked more by the web viewers.  The red short haired girl was in tears.  Then Tyra announced a girl would be brought back in to the competition and picked by the online voters.  This episode was called, "The Girl Who Came Back Into the Competition."  Yay!  I can't wait to see who it is.  The eliminated girls come in and that's it.  How very disappointing.  They should've saved the title of the episode for next week.  Bad Tyra!

I've been watching Dancing with the Stars but only the elimination shows.  They always recap the dances a bit and we know all the dancers are pretty good cuz they've been on their own seasons before.  A highlight was hearing Donny Osmond and Susan Boyle sing This Is the Moment from Jekyll and Hyde.  The poor lady was so nervous, she was stiff as a board and clutched Osmond's hand w/ white knuckles.  Actually, the real highlight of the show was Bristol Palin getting the boot.  Bye and take your mother w/ you.  Brooke is still the worst hostess ever.  She's monotone, dull and boring.

Well, that's about it.  I'm writing regular show reviews one by one on Hubpages too at tvjunkiejantina.hubpages.com  If you want quick recaps of competition reality shows, stick right here.  So keep watching and until next week, stay tuned.

It's Not Just the Weather That's Cool

Hello fellow TV watchers.  Or at least people who are interested in knowing what's going on in the land of TV.  Some reality shows are wrapping up and some are just getting into the swing.  Such is the ebb and flow of competition reality shows.  I love that they do have beginnings and endings.  Maybe one reason I don't care for voyeuristic shows is the feeling that they are never ending.  Whenever I watch one, I'm always wishing someone would get eliminated.  Oh well.  On to the shows.

The Amazing Race went to Indonesia.  All but the Monster truck couple team took the same flight.  Sometimes that's a help and sometimes it's a mistake.  It's interesting to note, they commented that they didn't know if they were ahead of everybody or behind everybody.  We, the viewers, knew so it just made us feel bad for them.  Luckily, everybody got to a stopping point w/ starting time tickets for the next day.  The next morning, the teams had to do some kind of race w/ motorbikes vs. bulls pulling a human sled thing.  Each team had to go one at a time so no getting ahead or falling behind there.  I think the producers realized it wasn't a real contest because we only saw 1 race and then the rest of the teams just showing up at the end of it to get their clue.  The roadblock had 1 member of the team pedaling a kid's ride to make it go while creating balloon animals and art cuz a lot of the balloons turned out to be hat types and that's not animals.  I think the people who pedaled the merry go rounds had the advantage because they didn't have to get off the machine to give the balloon art to the next child.  So when they had given each child a balloon art thing, they could move on.  It was just as hard as it looked and the order of the racing teams really changed in this task.  The one tall and one short men's team really fell behind because he just couldn't get the knack of those balloons.  So the Sri Lankan twins and the young white couple were first out of the gate and the detour had the choice of hauling long ice blocks or setting up a fish display.  The twins were the only team of the day to pick the fish and I have to say, they were impressive keeping an eye out for details and special instructions.  The rest of the teams found difficulty in just finding the place w/ the detour clue.  Once again, in a foreign country, make sure you have a taksi guy w/ a cell phone.  3 teams found themselves very lost and the Monster truck couple didn't take it well.  I wonder what that taksi guy did to keep them in it?  The finish mat happened to be right outside the market where the fish stand was and where the ice was to be delivered.  The twins hit the finish mat first and they were hilarious and fun to watch.  Surprisingly, the tall/short men's team who left the roadblock last were not the last to hit the finish mat.  Wow!  It really does prove you should never give up in this game.  The young white couple couldn't overcome their bad taksi luck.  No not that young white couple, the other one.  It's early in the season and at this point, I'm just waiting for a few people to be weeded out so I can keep them straight.

The Food Network is having it's annual Halloween Wars competition.  They take teams consisting of one pumpkin carving artist, one sugar artist and one cake artist.  I'm not sure how these teams are created but some you look at and go, "They're going to kill it." and others you just hope they don't embarrass themselves.  This season, the team of Ruccolo, Garcia and their pumpkin guy seem to be the shoe-ins.  Richard  Ruccolo has never lost a competition he's entered.  Last year he did that ultimate cake competition, dropped his cake, got the boot, won his way back into the competiton and won the whole thing.  How impressive is that?  I love how calm he works too and he still bangs out beautiful work.  The judges, I'm not too familiar w/ but I'm just grateful not to see that sour faced English lady.  In this episode, Team Garcia ran away w/ the competiton winning both challenges.  I knew the writing was on the wall for one team when they ended up w/ one heckuva ugly fat clown.  It looked like Santa drunk at a Bar Mitzvah.  Yep, the team got sent home.  I don't think they were surprised either.   The sugar guy was Dana.  Hey, didn't he win the cake boss competition?  What's going on? They're recycling contestants now?

Face Off had a really cute challenge.  This time they only had one big one.  The artists had to make Dr. Seuss characters from The Sleep Book.  Is this an old book I never heard of or is this something from the archives of Dr. Seuss because I'm pretty sure he passed away? Since the characters were already drawn for the book, the artists didn't have to completely come up w/ the concept.  The makeups were so cute w/ a lot of upturned noses, tufty hair and lotsa body fur.  Roy made the whole body form and left his creature w/ a bare belly that looked a lot like a Buddha belly.  It didn't seem too kid appealing to me.  Laura covered her creature in black and white fur.  Nicole's was a cute red thing to match her hair.  The twin brother recreated the Grinch and Alana couldn't make her yellow puffball creature work.  It didn't help that she started out with a feeling of failure at the very beginning.  She was totally missing Rod.  I didn't realize how much moral support he gave her as well as advice.  The guest judge was Ron Howard's producing partner, Brian Grazer.  He still has that signature frightened hair look.  The artists should really ask him how he does that.  Anyhoo, Nicole was declared the winner and Alana was sent home.  I really think she looked exhausted and was probably ready to go home anyway. Bye!  I'll miss...nothing actually.  I hated her neon red hair and nose ring.

Survivor really focused on people making ousting plans and arguing.  It was a little pointless since the blue team was still there.  Yes, they're half the size of the other teams but they're still there.  At least they showed people gathering food and cooking.  On the red team, Johnathan took 2 guys to go fishing and they seemed to get quite chummy.  The women of the tribe noticed.  For some odd reason, I felt like all the men were speaking w/ forked tongues to each other.  On the yellow team Lisa seems to be getting friendlier w/ her tribe.  I don't know why they keep wanting to get rid of Skupin. He didn't win his season, he's a good worker and good in the challenges.  What else does he have to do?  I would also be all over that guy but I kind of have a thing for bald guys.  Abi Maria showed her meangirl thing when she jumped all over her "friend" when the HII clue was found amongst the friend's spilled backpack contents.  What they didn't know was, Peter just threw it on the pile and let the girl take the flack.  What a turdy thing to do.  Sometimes a big show of emotion can ruin your social game.  At Blue team's camp, they were stating the obvious, "We need to win."  No kidding!  The game of the day consisted of each member carrying big balls milkmaid style over a rope obstacle and putting them into holders.  They had to do one at a time.  Then one person swung a ball on a rope to hit and break those balls.  I was thinking, Hey!  Blue team might actually have a shot at this.  After all, w/ 3 teams, you don't have to win.  You just have to not be the loser loser.  This time the first prize was steaks and fixins.  2nd prize was fixins w/ no steaks.  3rd prize was no food and a trip to tribal council.  Here's where it got unfair.  Since the yellow and red teams had twice as many people as the blue tribe, they got to sit out any 3 players each.  Oh come on!  Give the Blue team a break.  I think they should've either made all the players play or require at least 1 woman to play.  I know that if all the players had to play the blue team members would've had to carry balls twice but they had heart and huge incentive to win.  As it was, the yellow and red teams sat out all the ladies.  OMG!  At the beginning of the challenge, it seemed the red team found one of their men was kind of girly and fell way behind.  In these games, you also need luck and once again, blue team didn't have it.  The yellow team won the big prize and the blue team headed for tribal again.  Poor Russell did not have the fortitude of Job and beseeched, berated and cried out to God for all the failure and unfairness of his Survivor life.  Awww...  it freaked out a lot of people including Jeff Probst.  LOL!  The red team traded their fixins prize for another tarp.  With all the rain, who can blame them?  Once again, we didn't get to see the tribes enjoying their prize.  Too bad.  I love to see starving people eat and it always makes people nicer to each other.  At blue camp, Russell scrambled around looking for the HII.  I loved the camera panning to it every 5 seconds.  Too bad Russell didn't notice that.  He was caught by the lone lady of the tribe.  Let the 3 way conniving commence!  It was predictable and amusing.  What can I say?  I got a kick out of it.  At tribal, the Survivors were so tired and beat down Jeff had to drag stuff out of them.  So we all wondered how the vote would go.  Would the men vote for the lone woman?  Would the 2 white people stick together?  Would the older people vote out the younger?  Would there be a 3 way tie?  Well, Russell's luck ran out and he was voted out.  Now he has even more complaints for God.  As for his remaining tribe members, I think they're just fodder for the mill.  If they join the other tribes or are mixed up in tribes, they're still gonners because they haven't been able to bond w/ the other players.  I kind of feel sorry for them.  Their only hope will be to win all the immunity challenges.  Sigh...

The Challenge:  Battle of the Seasons seemed to focus on the fatty Eric and his new found love from the Brooklyn team.  Knight seemed to want to stir the pot by throwing peoples' laundry in the pool and generally messing w/ it.  The girls were not amused.  I'm not sure if he was drunk but it didn't seem so.  I'm thinking he might be a natural douchebag.  There were a few shots of Alton and Sarah but not much so maybe they're doing a really good job of being clandestine.  Too bad cuz they're such a cute couple.  For once, Trishelle hasn't latched onto a guy but the season is early.  There was some fighting, shouting, hooking up and general drunkenness but what else is new?  For the team challenge, it was a strength and endurance thing.  Half the team was up on a platform holding onto a rope that had a large wood box on the end.  The other half of the team gathered large rocks to put in other teams' boxes.  Meanwhile, the people holding onto the rope had to keep the box from touching the ground.  Eric proved he does have some muscle but it must all be in his legs.  The other teams didn't give team Fresh Meat a break at all and filled their box first.  Oh come on!  It's not like Camilla can carry 2 rocks at once.  Eric's rope started around his waist and he held that box of rocks up for a long time but when it came to armstrength, it was over.  I loved the look of utter disgust he gave to everyone else.  Being out first gave Fresh Meat an automatic place in the Arena.  Oy!  Team Cancun outlasted everyone and won the day.  I wonder if it says anything about how strong their alliance is?  Anyway, here's the part that pissed me off.  The show wasted the rest of the hour showing more drunkenness, shouting, fighting and hooking up instead of the Arena.  Ack!  I hate that!  It looks like they're shifting the sequence of the show and now the arena eliminations will start the shows.  Ugh. I can't wait to see the arena because it's going to be Devyn and not Chet against Camilla and Eric and the game will be mental.  Hmmm...

Project Runway was 1 show away from the finale and I have to say, it was the biggest waste of time since the finale when Mondo lost and wretched Gretch won w/ her granola collection.  The 4 designers were sent home w/ time and money to do their final collections w/ the reminder from Heidi that not all of them would make it to fashion week.  Oh Liar!  We all know that the top 8 or so designers all get to show their collections at fashion week to throw off anyone who might notice who's who on the show.  Tim Gunn proceeded to his usual visits.  Christopher made a print from his mother's x-rays.  Someone else has already done this and Christopher's was less cutting edge and more creepy.  Also, all the clothes he's made are varying shades of black and mud.  Tim also points out his love of sweetheart necklines.  He encourages him to keep on working.  Dmitry has lost his job and home but not heart.  His designs looked quite skimpy w/ a lot of see through material and some tops that only a flatchested woman could wear.  Note to Dmitry; wearing underwear as clothes was so 80's that Seinfeld made fun of it.  His collection also seems to be a lot of black and white.  Fabio made a bohemian resort collection w/ pastels.  Tim questions the pants and asks if they can be made out of organza.  I have to admit I was asking, "What's organza exactly?"  I was questioning the Frankenstein's monster boots.  Fred Gwynn would be so proud.  I noticed the designers doing the blogs really loved this collection.  Okay.  Finally, Mellissa showed she's run out of original ideas.  Her designs look like remakes of stuff she's done during the season.  The difference is, everything is black and white.  Ok!  Of course each visit also has Tim meeting various people or seeing the area.  The designers then come back together in a really nice place in New York.  After a clinking of champagne glasses, they went to the workroom to do finishing touches on their looks.  They had to pick their 3 best looks for the judges to see.  Here's where it got really funny.  They didn't do that.  2 designers actually admitted they didn't show their best looks.  Really?  Why are you holding back?  It's like when they say, "I could've done better."  Well why didn't you? Why are you holding back now?  Then the judges pissed me off.  Nobody was eliminated.  Oh come on.  You have 1 job to judge who's the worst and kick them off.  If you can't, then I say, bring on new judges.  These are worn out.  So everybody hugged it out when they found they were all going to fashion week.  Whatever.

A new show I found is Arrow.  OMG, it's quite cool and filmed in a dark way like the last seasons of Smallville.  It was the pilot episode so it established the backstory and origin of the superhero.  It had a quick pace but not so quick we couldn't keep up.  I've always felt that Green Arrow always was pissed off at something and now we know why.  He survived a shipwreck that involved his Father, chick of the day, and others.  It didn't turn out to be a Gilligan's Island thing because he was the lone survivor.  He was on the island a really long time.  I think his friend ticked off about 8 superbowls he missed.  On the island was where he honed his archery and acrobatics.  When he returned, he found his mother remarried, his girlfriend pissed off and his friends untrustworthy.  Hmmm...Let the vigilanteism commence!  All I can say is, I was wanting more archery and less running around.  I'm hoping that in subsequent episodes, they have the 'giving the bad guy his due' thing more.  In this time of tense times and nutballs coming out of the woodwork, this is a great show for something that we know we can never do.  We want to see bad guys get what they deserve.  God knows the police take forever cuz they have to be sensitive and PC.  The courts hand down light sentences and too many bad guys don't get what they deserve and are laughing about it in their cells.  It's frustrating and we want justice!  We want to live vicariously through this superhero.  So I hope the producers keep him mean and green and don't make him a huggable character.

Well, that's it for this week.  What did you think about the shows?  Do you hate non-eliminations as much as I do?  Keep watching and until then, stay tuned.

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

Fall TV has returns of oldies but goodies, premieres of some good and some bad and then there's the rest.  In this day of modern TV programming, the networks aren't very patient.  In the old days, they listened to somebody else and gave a show a chance to be noticed.  Sometimes, by the time I hear about a show or find it, the network has already cancelled it and I only get to see 3 or 4 episodes.  It's such a shame.  Note to the network execs.  Don't always listen to the critics.  They seem to be old crotchety uptight ultra sensitive people or so young all they want is fast moving action.  A lot of times you don't really know how good or bad the show is until a few weeks go by.  That's when you see if the writers are rehashing or stealing old ideas.  Ok, well on to the shows.

The Great Food Truck Race had it's finale w/ Nonna's Kitchenette (Jersey girls) and the Seoul Sausage truck (Koreans).  This time, they didn't just race around a big city, they raced from town to town.  It was kind of impressive but I'll bet it was exhausting.  You know a lot of time was spent on the road and I don't think they can do prep or any cooking while the truck is rolling.  At least when they film, that's what it looks like.  Of course they had a truckstop and the Jersey girls won a 3 hour headstart while the Koreans had to shuck clams.  The Jersey girls commented that the Koreans kept parking next to them.  Yeah, I wondered about that too.  How come they weren't told to find their own spot?  It seemed rather lazy to me but the Jersey girls kind of got back at them by telling the customers in line, that the Korean service was slow.  Here's a clue; if you're parked across town, it's tough for the competitor to steal your customers.  One town they had to go to was very small, so the trucks were told they had to sell items for $2 or less.  That's better than the $1 items last season.  I liked the ending better because it didn't come down to who made it to the finish line first.  Ok, yes, I realize it's a show w/ Race in the name but still it's food trucks and the name of the game is selling food.  This time the winner was determined by who had made the most money.  It was close but Seoul Sausage truck won and got to keep their truck and a good chunk of money.  They got a bag full of bills and I expected them to roll around in it but nope.  Once again, they didn't serve any sausage.  That's kind of weird and as a customer, I would've been quite disappointed.  It reminds me of the time my family traveled to the East coast and found a place called The Fisherman and it was a burger joint that didn't serve any fish.  Weird.  My parents never learned to ask locals about good places to eat.

The Amazing Race is back and I think they've started in California.  I think the producers have given up on different start cities because Phil didn't even say what city they were in to begin.  The teams are diverse but kind of like other seasons.  There's the Father/Daughter team, Twins, the quirky, the gay team, the white trash, the married couple, the engaged couple, etc.  So the teams set out for China after rappelling down a cliff to get their first clue and making a mad dash for the airport.  At the airport, one team ducked under the lane ropes at the gate to get ahead of other teams.  Hey, I say good for them.  I like to see fierce competitors who shun social manners and remind the other pansy racers that it's a race for crying out loud.  I may be in the minority of viewers in this day and age of kinder and gentler.  Yeah, ick.  I also hate that No Child Left Behind thing too.  In China the first task had 1 team member playing pingpong against a very young person who used funny items like saute pans, tamborines and clipboards for his paddle.  I thought it was hilarious.  They had to play in turn w/ the Chinese player moving to the next table after a point was lost so the task took longer than you'd think.  The black sisters team had one yelling at the other a lot which unnerved the Chinese.  You could tell the Chinese player got fatigued because the teams seemed to win all at once.  Then they had to go to a place and eat frog fallopian tubes.  Double Ick!!!  They looked nasty and I wondered if they tasted nasty as well.  The clue told the racers they weren't able to pick up the serving vessel which forced them to either use the chopsticks or their fingers.  Every team followed the clue except the monster truck white trash couple and he had to eat twice as much as the other teams.  Ew.  Then the teams showed whether they had any intelligence or not.  They had to find a lady using an abacus.  I loved the clips of teams running back and forth right in front of the lady.  It was obvious they didn't know an abacus from a hole in the wall.  I wondered why people didn't ask strangers if they saw her because I don't think that's a normal thing to see someone just sitting outside w/ an abacus.  The smart teams were able to get ahead at this point.  One leading team asked another team about it and they were dumb enough to tell them.  There's a cool twist to this season.  If the team who comes in first in the first leg of the race ultimately wins the whole thing, they get 2 million semoleans.  This was not a time to give any help to another team.  I would've been mean enough to really misdirect them like, she's in a boat and the abacus is colorful chopsticks.  It was a crucial mistake because the team that asked, made it first to the finish mat just by being faster on foot.  I have a feeling the producers won't have to shell out the 2 mill cuz this team isn't very bright.  The father/daughter team came in last and thank you producers for not making it a non elimination leg.  I got so tired of those last year that I actually did skip a few episodes and watched them weeks later on-line.  I have hopes for an exciting season and I hope the teams take their gloves off and keep their eyes on the prize.  We'll see.

Face Off had cool challenges.  First for the quick challenge, they brought back eliminated artists and had them do makeup w/ a Dia de la Muerta theme.  You could tell the people who were very familiar w/ the theme and who weren't.  Ultimately, all the makeup looked pretty good but Nicole was declared the winner and was brought back into the competition.  WTG girl!  For the main challenge, the artists were paired up w/ children who had drawn their own vision of a monster.  It was quite whimsical and interesting to note, even though the monsters had scary stuff like big teeth, multiple body parts or horns, they weren't scared of their monsters.  I have a feeling these children were fans of the movie Monsters Inc.  Billy Crystal's voice could never be a scary thing.  The artists worked very well w/ the children really fleshing out their ideas from the crude drawings and having a real description from the kids.  The artists final sketches were so cool; I was flabbergasted by their talent.  Then the artists  had to make the look.  I kept wondering what Roy was doing.  He's wicked talented and they only showed about 15 seconds of him working and hid his work by filming him standing in front of it.  Again, I was impressed by those who made a great overall look that didn't look so anthropomorphic.  Laura, who's really quiet but fierce made a fuzzy body that she didn't think would work.  Roy literally had a face on one arm of the monster; crazy cool.  Unfortunately, his monster had technical problems.  Alana has a weird fixation w/ pink paint and tends to use it on all her looks.  Maybe she likes to match her hair.  Sarah somehow pulled all her look together in the last hour.  Wow, she must be some kind of speed demon.  I was surprised to note the artists had all their models standing up straight.  I would think this would've been a time to have a look on a crouching model.  If the models weren't so skinny, the looks probably would've been less human looking.  Oh well.  In the end Laura won w/ her green fuzzy bodied Jabba the Hut and Rod was sent packing.  Bye Rod.  You were so cool and fun, I'll miss you.  BTW, you rocked!  I thought your monster was cool, but maybe too human looking.

The Challenge: Battle of the Seasons was sans Team Austin.  Nobody seemed to notice.  The show loves to show pairings and we saw fatty Eric getting cozy w/ Devyn, Jonnae w/ a white guy I can't remember his name, Sarah getting really cozy w/ Alton and a couple of younger players rekindling their romance from their season.  I say, Yay Sarah.  She deserves a nice guy after futiley chasing after douchebags in previous seasons. She also gets dazzled by strong athletic guys and that's Alton, alright.  Meanwhile, Trishelle thought Sarah had ulterior motives.  Really?  I call that projecting cuz Trishelle would totally use a guy to get ahead in the game and use him as a shield from the arena.  Ok, so on to the challenge.  It was quite precarious w/ the teams having to make their way across a steel hill of bars w/ only big iron hooks.  BTW, did I mention the big steel structure was high in the air over water?  All I can say is, the builders are quite impressive and seem quite handy w/ the welding torches.  Since Team Las Vegas won the previous challenge, they got to determine the lineup.  That poor Fresh Meat team was sent in first again.  Fatty Eric showed everyone what it looked like when a person fell from the steel structure; looked painful.  You'd think in his spare time he'd be doing pushups or lifting weights.  So once again, Team Las Vegas won and Team Fresh Meat was in the very bottom.  It seems to be a running theme and I'm afraid it's going to stay that way until that Fresh Meat team is eliminated.  I like that the losing team is automatically in the Arena and don't get to determine their opponents.  For the Arena, Las Vegas sent in Team Brooklyn (Sarah's team) after much arguing.  You can't blame Alton for wanting to spare Sarah but I don't think Sarah told him to do that.  Trishelle not only told people Sarah was using Alton, but that Sarah wouldn't volunteer to compete in the Arena for her team.  Well, Trishelle was wrong hee hee hee.  Way to show those balls Sarah.  The Fresh Meat team couldn't make up their minds who should compete cuz Cara Maria didn't want to take her turn.  Las Vegas got to choose and gave fatty Eric a reprieve and sent in Cara Maria and Brandon.  They also chose the strategy game.  It looked really tough.  The teams had to tangle a big old long rope that was tied to them all over and around a dome shaped jungle gym.  Then they switched and had to untangle what the other team had done.  This game required intelligence, stamina and athleticism which really describes Sarah.  She did a really good job of leading Chet and Chet did a really good job of letting her lead.  Was it a surprise that Sarah and Chet won?  Nope.  Cara Maria pointed out that now ugly Camilla was stuck w/ fatty Eric.  Yowza, what a team.  If next week's challenge involves eating, team Fresh Meat may have a chance.  I wonder if the producers will skew it that way or not?  We'll see.

Survivor is getting dull because each show is looking like the previous one.  They need to show more scenes of camplife because it just looks like the people are standing around conniving but aren't very bright about it.  The thing that separates this show from Big Brother is the primitive living.  We know a lot of the game is social manipulation but so are most of the other reality game shows.  This time there wasn't so much rain.  The tough talking hispanic lady w/ the accent found the HII (hidden immunity idol) but then let the guy have it and proceeded to brag she found it.  He didn't look amused and I wonder if she let him keep it w/ him?  Bad mistake if she did because if it's not in your possession, you can't use it.  This season is showing an obvious winner team and an obvious loser team.  The blue loser team pointed out the obvious, "We're down to 4.", "We need to win."  On the yellow team, Lisa's agreeing to vote out Michael if they go to tribal council.   Yeah...I don't think so.  On the red team, they speculated Johnathan had the HII and he finally just told them he did.  Then they proceeded to plan a blindside if they went to tribal council.  Yeah...I don't think so.  Ok, so on to the challenge.  It involved people retrieving round floaty puzzle pieces from a rope somehow tied to the bottom of the ocean.  I wondered how they did that cuz the contestants weren't able to just pull the rope up to get to the floaty pieces but they were able to use the rope to help them descend under water.  Then the floaty pieces were strung on a rope in puzzle fashion and a word was unscrambled from letters on the pieces.  Got that?  I knew it was trouble for the blue team when it involved swimming and stamina.  Par for the course, Russell proved to be quite lame and Angela, Ashley or whatever her name was, was hampered by her own implanted flotation devices.  So really, the blue team only had 2 people doing all of the work.  Michael, on the yellow team, busted his water goggles right in his face by diving into the water w/ them on.  There must be a technique to it cuz Olympic swimmers do it all of the time w/ out breaking their goggles.  Hmmm...  He looked quite the primitive warrior w/ blood running from his orbital areas.  Luckily, he didn't damage his eyeballs.  Okay, so long story short, the red team won first and got a big fishing kit, canoe and immunity.  Yellow team came in second and won a small fishing kit and immunity.  You guessed it!  Blue team won nothing but a trip to tribal council.  There was a little back and forth between blonde girl or Russell.   The other 2 couldn't decide who was the weaker member.  At tribal, the whole thing was hashed out and blonde girl tried to make her excuses but only dug her grave deeper.  Russell was tired and weak and talked in circles.  In the end, the team decided the blonde girl was the weakest link and voted her out.  I did notice that at least the votes make a little sense this year.  The team is trying to retain it's most athletic people but it doesn't help when the team was weak people from the very start.  I think the show will let the team whittle down to 2 people and then just put them on the other tribes.   Maybe they'll mix up the tribes cuz if they just distribute the last 2 blue members to the other tribes, they're going to be dead meat.  We'll see.  Meanwhile, Zzzzz...

The debate between Obama and Romney was a good reality show in itself.  I realized how spot on Jay Pharoah's impression of Obama is on SNL.  How come I never noticed that growling Ughhh... sound before Obama speaks, before?  Sorry to say, after all the finger pointing, promises and mild digs, I still think both speak w/ forked tongues.  I think Romney practiced a lot lot lot and he was declared the winner by well... almost everybody.  Wow!  WTG Willard!  Also, I appreciated how they kept it short and didn't bother the TV lineups.  Yay!  I liked them a little more.

I watched Life After Top Chef and y'know what?  I discovered, I didn't really care much what happened to the chefs after Top Chef.  We have Twitter now and I didn't learn anything new and watching people cook w/out instruction and competition is kind of boring.  There wasn't even a dinner rush scene like they have on Kitchen Nightmares.  How come the people don't seem as interesting and exciting as they did during their Top Chef seasons?  I'm thinking the editors and producers of Top Chef are better than I thought.  To sum it up, I suggest you don't watch the show and just follow the chefs on Twitter.  At least they tell you there, what they're cooking.

Project Runway was down to 5 designers and kept saying this was the show that would determine the finalists.  I didn't believe them.  The poor designers were looking very exhausted w/ big undereye circles and droopy shoulders.  They also smile less.  They still haven't recovered from those stupid baby dolls from the last challenge.  Curses on the producers for doing that to them!  I hope every baby they encounter pees, drools or vomits right into their mouths.  Ok, I'll shut up about that.  So the designers were told they'd go to a far far away place.  I too thought they'd take a cool trip like they did in Jeffrey's season.  Nope, they went to a castle that I've never heard of and didn't even get to go inside.  Whatever.  It's a stupid makeup themed challenge.  Didn't they already have one of these this season?  It's not like the models don't wear dramatic makeup during the regular challenges.  The makeup company showcased a fantasy line and they based them on kind of fairytale women:  evil enchantress, artsy muse, mystic, huntress or something like that.  You get the idea.  I was thinking they would make fantasy Barbie dresses like you see during the Holidays.  At Mood, Swatch was underfoot but unharmed.  Probably because everyone gravitated to the gaudy materials.  Oh and the designs had to be avante garde.  When I think avante garde, I think a lot of Vivien Westwood w/ her outlandish but cool looks that only Lady Gaga would dare to wear in public; artistic but not wearable by the normal person.  Poor Sonjia found her main gold lame material missing.  I wondered why she wasn't able to retrieve it but then I learned the bags from Mood are given to PA's to take back to Parsons.  Maybe the bag was lost in transport.  If so, she should've been able to buy the material again.  Totally unfair!  Fabio worked on what looked like a transparent dress and a coat you could wear upside down.  It reminded me of that upside down shirt dress made in a previous season.  None of the rest of the looks looked even close to avante garde.  Dmitry made a short dress that looked gorgeous and cool but not fantasy or avante garde.  Christopher's black gown looked better going than coming w/ strange feathers on the arms.  He has a stick figure model and made her look fat and shapeless from the front.  It didn't help that she has no shape to fill out the clothes and she's dull as dishwater on the runway.  Fabio made his transparent dress into palazzo pants that I swear gave the model camel toe. Ew.  Sonjia ended up w/ a green dress that had way too much opaque flesh colored mesh that didn't match the model's skin.  Kors hated it to the max.  Melissa had a colorful gown w/ a high collared vest.  Heidi shocked me and made me LOL at the same time when she said, "I can't decide who's look is uglier, your's or Fabio's."  to Melissa. Oh dear, that was kind of harsh.  Even though it wasn't very avante garde, the judges loved Dmitry's look.  Then the designers were asked who they'd want to go to Fashion week w/ them.  I hate that.  You know it's tough on the designers because they've all become close.  It's hard to say something like that in front of the person you're talking about.  But they did it and I noticed nobody said Sonjia's name.  Awww...why not?  Dmitry was declared the winner and poor Sonjia was auffed.  Well shoot.  I was really hoping to see her collection.  Bye Sonjia, see you at the reunion.

America's Next Top Model stopped showing Kristen as a mean girl.  That was nice of them.  For the challenge, the models traveled in RV's in 2 teams, made pitstops and had to do random acts of modeling.  It was a hilarious concept but some of the girls didn't understand it.  You have to look like you're doing an everyday thing but do a pose while doing it.  Also, they had to film a snip of a commercial w/ another girl holding the filming Ipad.  So after a lot of running around, snapping photos and such, Laura was declared the winner.  I think her prize was having her snippet shown on website.  Hmmm...I wondered if she got paid for it?  During the show, we also realized that Victoria has a scary attachment to her mother.  If her mother should die suddenly, that girl will be royally screwed.  Being away from her mother has even made her taste buds die.  The other girls comment on her weight loss and she is looking more wan.  The photoshoot was strange w/ the girls in cute dresses but in gross situations like laying in a dumpster of trash, licking soda off of the floor, puking in a toilet, etc.  Ugh.  Not only that, the girls didn't get a break after the runaround challenge from the day.  They did a really great job at not looking exhausted, but they are young.  Victoria always makes a scenario to go w/ her shoot and this one was rambling and hilarious.  Maybe that's what exhaustion and being undernourished does to you.  Judging has become predictable and boring.  It seemed ugly Cutrone and that dumb male model have finally given in to Tyra and gave similar scores to Tyra's.  This time, they showed only nice comments from online people.  That was nice of them.  Sometimes I wonder what they're looking at. Victoria's photo looked like tired girl sitting on the toilet.  They loved it.  Huh?  In the end the girl who's photo was licking the soda off of the floor was sent home.  Yeah, I kind of saw that coming cuz she was in a pose that didn't show off her body and then failed to engage the camera.  Laura was also on the bottom 2 but I think her challenge win saved her. 

I was able to see The Middle.  Man, are those writers up w/ the times.  Frankie was let go from her job and I felt for her when she voiced big plans and then realized, deep down, she didn't want to do them.  The rest of the season should be funny to watch Frankie wrestle w/ what she can do vs. what she should do vs. what she wants to do.  Also, the family will be living on less which is a theme widely known in this economy.  The Big Bang Theory was bumped to a late night viewing by the local network for football.  I hate football.  Those guys can't stick to a time schedule to save their lives.  5 minutes on the clock turned into 40 in real life.  Ugh.  At least the stupid Cardinals were spanked by the other team.  Raising Hope is officially back and funny as usual.  It was really cool to see the Mother/Daughter team of Tippi Hedren and Melanie Griffith on the show.  I never knew how funny Hedren is.  She was the funniest corpse since Weekend at Bernie's.  I've been trying to watch Elementary but something always goes wrong.  The network showed Hawaii Five-O instead once and they cut it the next time. 

Well, that's enough for now.  I know I didn't cover a lot but hey, I gotta stop before the blog becomes an encyclopedia.  Keep watching and until next time people, stay tuned.