View and Review

Hello everybody!  I hope you're all enjoying the TV show offerings that the end of the season and start of summer brings.

The Celebrity Apprentice finally had it's finale.  You can tell Trump's ego had grown because the 2 hours seemed to have him onscreen more than half of the time.  Oh well.  It's his show.  So Arsenio Hall and Clay Aiken were in the middle of putting together their live show and PSA.  Arsenio about had a heart attack when he got his first footage of Magic Johnson's bit from the West coast but the LA crew showed this wasn't their first rodeo and had actually done a few takes at different angles.  It worked.  Okay, so it was showtime.  Arsenio's party was just that.  An industry party and it looked kind of boring but hey, AIDS is a serious thing.  Clay's party was a circus; literally.  There were jugglers, carnival booths and games, carnival food and a clown; oh wait.  No, it was just Aubrey O'Day looking just like Ronald McDonald.  Donald Trump made his appearance which isn't that big a deal considering we see him every 10 minutes throughout this whole show.  Aubrey tried to do some weird taking aside Trump to "show him something" but Clay wisely grabbed the reins on her and yanked hard.  WTF?  Was she really trying to take credit and tout herself when this wasn't her task at all?  Yo Aubrey.  Did you forget you were already fired?  The cool thing was, they dropped the middle wall/curtain between the parties to make one big room.  Wow!  I had no idea the parties were so close together.  Arsenio was first w/ his comedians.  His show is full of energy and laughs.  For those who were expecting family friendly got a surprise because most comedians are a little blue and Lisa Lampinelli is known for her brash potty mouth.  I'm sure the kids in that audience were learning some new and colorful words.  I liked Arsenio's PSA a lot.  It utilized the stars in his team and it was funny and brought out the theme of his charity w/out being depressing.  Clay's show was all music.  Debi Gibson tried to make it mostly about her but the audience really lit up when Dee Snyder started singing his Twisted Sister song.  Dee and Debi sang duet and they sounded really good together.  Clay ended the show as was expected.   His PSA was bright and colorful but kind of a Debbie Downer when you consider that the charity is about making disabled children happier and he was the only celeb in it.  So the rest of the show was all about the pseudo-boardroom.  The other celebs weree there and earlier in the show, we found Dyana was still steaming about her harsh treatment from Lisa.  Get over it woman.  Lisa's the only one who told you the truth to your face.  Everybody else talked behind your back.  Anyway, Arsenio and Clay treated everybody w/ a duet and I was surprised that Arsenio could sing so well.  Finally after a bit of this and that, Trump announced Arsenio as the winner. Yay!  I totally agree.  See you next season.

Next Food Network Star took it's teams to different parts of New York w/ signature styles.  Then each member of the team had to focus on one place in that area, cook a dish that represented it and then give a tourguide bit about it on a moving bus.  Okay.  I admire the people who just rolled w/ it.  Some people went to the place, learned about it and fit the food style into their style to make a tasty bit.  Some people groused about not knowing about that foodstyle and not knowing that place.  Oh shut up.  Do they think the stars that go and promote places on their shows actually really know them beforehand?  Not really.  Most of the time they get the notes from their production staff, plaster on a smile and just start rolling.  I really think this was a challenge for the judges to see who would be easy to work with in the business.  I'd like to break in right here again to tell the food network execs to get better makeup people.  Why do men's lips have to match their shirts? Everybody looked like a cross between circus clowns and funeral corpses.  Okay, back to the show.  Most everybody did pretty well.  On the bus, there was only one person who looked like she was going to hurl from carsickness.  That one guy w/ wild hair and eyes on Giada's team was really bad at his tourguide bit and that homey lady on Bobby's team was so boring, the bus driver almost fell asleep.   Also, nobody appreciated her whining that she didn't know how to make chicken and waffles.  Really?  You never made chicken or waffles?  The judges aren't giving any slack on the food and declared some dishes plain, some too simple, some uninventive and some bland.  Oh dear!  In the end Giada's team was declared the winners for the week.  The black guy w/ the bowties on Alton's team and that homey lady on Bobby's team had to make a Wow dish w/ potatoes and as usual, do a presentation of the dish on camera.  I like this format because we don't have to listen to all the good and bad about everybody and yet the bottom 2 have a chance to save themselves in case they just had a crappy day.  I was afraid the bowtie guy would get the boot due to his not making the focus of his dish out of potatoes but it must've tasted good and his on-camera presentation was really good.  The homey lady proved she wasn't just boring on the bus, she was just boring.  The judges made a good decision and booted her out.  Bye!  Hope to see you never lady.  She was the weak link on Bobby's team.

 America's Got Talent is still in the audition stages.  I'm a little disappointed in the producers for having too much back ground story and too little showing of the acts.  The good ones are only partially shown and they only seem to show a few of the bad ones.  Oh come on!  We know there are a ton of bad ones.  There are a ton of people who think they're talented and they're not.  I'm left wondering, what are they filling the time w/?  Oh yeah, they're allowing Nick Cannon to goof on stage and the commercials are extra long.  They also have instances w/ Howard Stern going onstage.  That's not good cuz he's slower than a geriatric snail and it takes at least 5 minutes for him to get out of his chair and make it onstage.  So maybe the show should be called Does America Have Talent?  You'll Never Know Cuz We're Not Showing It.  So far, some of the more memorable acts have been the rapping grannie, the earth harp, the muscular couple lifting each other gracefully, the singing nurse, New York comedian, the Asian all girl band and the big picture ventriloquist.  The judges liked the guy w/ the iron nuts and that old rapping (?) guy.  I wasn't that impressed.  I like that the judges aren't just letting kids through just because they're cute.  Some dumb mother sent her 7 year old son onto the stage to rap.  He was terrible.  He got buzzed by all three judges and then started to cry.  OMG!  At that point, they should've sent out his mother to pick him up, get the no's from the judges and carry the kid offstage.  Did they do that?  No.  Howard Stern showed he's a huge putz and changed his vote to yes but luckily Sharon and Howie kept their heads and sent the kid off.  That was a lot of time wasted on a kid w/ no talent.  I'm not sure how many more audition shows are left but I hope they show more acts than they have.  We love to see the buzzed acts and if they get buzzed quickly, they go by fast.

I finally got to see Off Their Rockers.  NBC said it was a hit.  I don't know if the NBC execs have actually watched the show.  It's old people pranking young people.  The problem is, the pranks are too short and seem more like pranks on the old people to show how senile and a menace to society they are.  The weird thing is the people they prank are usually laughing at the old people.  That's not good.  The only thing that keeps this show from being total crap is Betty White's little tidbits of comedy before and after commercial breaks.  She truly does have "it".  A hit?  I think NBC is going a bit senile.

I totally missed America's Ninja Warrior.  If it's like previously seen seasons on G4 channel, it's like Wipeout for athletes.  People try a difficult obstacle course and we're either grimacing, laughing, cheering or being totally amazed.  I'll make sure and see the next episode.

Modern Family had it's finale and what a finale. OMG, OMG, OMG!  Mitch and Cam went to get their baby from Calexico and it turned out to be a telenovela situation w/ no baby for them in the end.  Jay and Manny had to take care of Lily and take her to her dance recital where she got stage fright and it ended w/ Jay having to dance w/ her.  The funniest part of that story was Jay's answers to the endless Why? Why? from Lily.  I think there may be a contest as to who's date is more gay;  Alex's or Sue Heck's from The Middle?  The best part from that story was when the Dad takes pictures and says, "With flash." and the date does a total Glee pose.  Finally, I'm not going to give all the spoilers so is Hailey going to move in w/her boyfriend or go to college?  What is up w/ Gloria's carsickness?  This was a great finale because it really does make us want to tune in next season yet leaves us w/ a smile on our faces for the whole summer.

America's Next Top Model was another clip show so I didn't watch.

Around the World In 80 Plates went to Barcelona Spain.  This time the teams were determined by the first 5 people to get to a certain spot.  As it turned out, all the men except Nookie made it first.  Hello girls, take off your high heels before you start running.  I'm very surprised Keven/Cheven even made it there at all what w/ his poor navigational skills.  So the men's team were the red team and Nookie and the girls were the black team.  Then they had to go to another place where they had to break down fish and gather ink from squid, I think.  It looked like fish they were squeezing the ink from but I've never heard of fish w/ ink.  Anyway, the red team won.  They're exceptional ingredient turned out to be huge red prawns.  Then the teams went to the market.  It's interesting that the men seemed to drive each other more crazy than the women but Nookie became the leader of the group and ruled the roost very well.  Once again, Jenna and Keven couldn't shut up.  Chefs don't like know-it-alls either.  Then the chefs were shown at leisure.  I'm not sure where it was but if it was their temporary living quarters, it was quite posh and fancy.  Much wine drinking took place and we finally saw the chefs starting to try to form alliances.  I knew it would come to who liked who and I'm guessing the winner won't actually be the best chef.  So far, Chaz has been sailing through and he's terrible.  So on to the cooking.  Both teams had to share the same restaurant and kitchen at the same time so dishes were served head to head.  Even though Keven was supposed to be working front of house, he mostly cooked and bossed people in the kitchen.  Jenna did a good job schmoozing the guests and judges which also included Jose Andreas.  I love his accent and the way he says things.  He could say, "Big pile of poo." and make it sound sexy.  Chaz tried to make a ceviche and ended up w/ cat food.  I have never heard of anybody tenderizing fish.  What a freakin' idiot.  So I have finally figured out that when they interview the diners and they say they like one team, it's the other team that wins.  Okay!  Well the diners mostly said they liked the red team.  Guess who won; yep the black team.  When the group stands before Curtis and Cat, how come they have such a hard time acknowledging what dishes they cooked?  Everytime, they look like total weenies.  After some talk and smoke blowing, Keven was finally voted to go home.  Good, I was sick to death of his arrogance and seeing up his big nostrils.

I saw the list of cut shows.  I wasn't too surprised by some and quite surprised at others.  CSI is whittling down some of it's crop and Miami version is gone.  Harry's Law went off it's course and I'm sorry to see it go because I love Kathy Baker but I have to admit, when it changed, I didn't make it a priority viewing.  Those new female lead dramas were cut but probably suffered from too much sap.  Here's a clue.  People who want to see action and drama don't want to see sap.  People who want to see sap want only sap and will watch Lifetime or Hallmark Channel.  I have to admit, as soon as a show gets sappy, I switch the channel to see what else is on.  I'll give an example.  A policewoman finishes her day of tough interviews and running after bad guys and settles on her couch and hugs her child...Channel change.  We care not about her child and even less about her domestic life.  NBC needs to get a new focus group because they haven't been able to find a winner of a show since Law & Order: SVU.  It seems the reality shows are winning and the networks are giving in.

Well, that's all for now.  Shows I'm anticipating are:  The Closer, Melissa and Joey and Project Runway.  As for now, there's still stuff to see.  So until next time, stay tuned.