Slim Pickins For Summer

Hello everyone.  I'm sorry I may have missed a week.  I'm just going to go w/ what I've seen this week so don't be surprised if you've been watching the shows and I have gaps.

American Ninja Warrior is finally in Las Vegas and showing the first stage of Mount Midoriyama.  I totally LOL when Matt Iseman says it because his voice changes to a gruff tough voice and it's hilarious.  They've only shown the bottom half of the men and some have proven to be quite impressive.  They also included some women as wildcards but they were disappointing.  The furthest a woman got was the jumping spider which she fell on.  I especially like when a cocky guy totally goes in the drink.  Haw haw.  Some of the guys w/ the bigger sob stories i.e. homeless, diabetic, jobless, etc.  really make you say, "Aw..." when they fail.  It's still exciting to watch and when a guy finishes the course, you really know he had the right combination of preparation, determination, luck and skill.  I can't wait to see the top finishers and see who gets shaken out.

America's Got Talent finally got done in Las Vegas.  Thank you Sharon, Howie and Howard for making good decisions.  I'm sorry but even though the rapping granny and rapping casio carrying grandpa were cute, they really didn't merit going any further.  The judges showed good taste.  I was surprised that some acts did worse w/ no audience.  For some reason, opera singers didn't do it for the judges.  I have a feeling that's the difference between Piers and Howard.  On to New York.  I hope the acts are more prepared and spectacular.  Maybe this year the winner won't be another singer.

Food Network Star had a challenge that was a little different for each contestant.  They had to do a live presentation to an audience and then the judges gave them glitches to throw them off.  Yvan did the best w/ his microphone going on the fritz and then having production people trying to fix it.  I was surprised Marty was able to keep her presentation down to 3 minutes but maybe it helped that she had ingredients missing because she couldn't go on and on about them.  Ippy had an audience walkout, the grill girl had a blender malfunction, Martita had wrong ingredients, Justin had a heckler and Michele had a PA who gave her completely wrong time cues.  I really thought Michele had the hardest one because each time the guy held up another time cue, she had to take that second to read it and process it.  Then they told her time was up and then to stretch it.  I think at that point I would've pointed out the complete stupidity of the time cue guy.  Poor Ippy lost the air in his balloon when the audience started leaving.  Justin looked totally pissed off at the heckler.  He really should've just taken 10 seconds to tell the audience he would take questions after the presentation.  Instead of joking about wrong ingredients on the table, Martita got perturbed.  Rule #1 in TV, never let them see you sweat and look happy at all times.  Luckily, the food wasn't being made onstage that was served to the judges.  In the end, Alton's team was declared the winners w/ Yvan told he did the best.  So Ippy and Martita had to do the judges final challenge.  I declare Ippy the black hammer of the season.  For the final presentation, they got a mystery ingredient they had to do a bit on.  By this time, the contestants should know Bob and Susie want anecdotes regarding the food.  Ippy had one that made no sense and Martita didn't.  The ingredient was oranges.  Ippy told something about making bug juice which had something to do w/ tangerines.  At the end, nobody knew what bug juice was.  Anyway, Martita was sent home for not being engaging.  I'm finding the people seem to be losing what they had in the beginning.  What's happening?  Are they sleep deprived?  Are they nervous in a smaller pool?  Are they second guessing themselves?  It's so weird.  Also, is it just me or is Ippy getting bigger in size each week?  I don't know.  I still miss Emily.  Come back Retro Rad Girl!

Hell's Kitchen is rehashing cooking challenges from past seasons.  This time they drug out the craps table w/ the alphabet dice.  Robin gave the funny ingredient which made her whole blue team groan and the women thought they had the challenge in the bag.  The men made the fruit ingredient work and pulled out the win.  Someone on that red team has a weird palate and it shows.  For the win, the blue team went to Las Vegas for the night and had a great time.  It was also a good commercial for the casino except they really didn't show any gambling. Probably because nobody's there gambling.  I also wondered why they didn't have the Hell's Kitchen jet.  Is the show economizing?  For their punishment, the women had to babysit a BBQ all night and there was no getting away from it due to a really loud alarm that went off every hour.  OMG, those women looked so tired, I was expecting lots of fighting and grouchiness.  For dinner service there were celebs in the kitchen.  At least in the blue kitchen.  Who the heck were those people in the red VIP seats?  Just because they were one time contestants on another Fox reality show, doesn't mean they're stars or famous.  In the Blue VIP section was David Beckham and his son.  Of course Victoria wasn't there.  She doesn't eat real food.  The guys did so poorly that Ramsey took them in the back room to have a conference leaving Robyn to bang out the apps by herself.  It was hilarious w/ Chef Scott asking and demanding this and that and Robyn trying to keep up.  The women may have been too tired to fight and did a really good job of getting all the food out.  There was a note of pride in Ramsey's voice when he pointed out to the men the empty ticket rack on the women's side when they hadn't even gotten done w/ 1 main course.  So Ramsey brought the women over to help finish the service.  The men were split as to who to put up for the elimination and it came down to Robyn who didn't want to piss off the guys.  As it was, Clemenza and Royce were up.  Once again scallops were a problem for Clemenza and Royce couldn't seem to cook any meat correct.  Royce finally used up his chances and was sent home.  It was about time.

Sorry, but I passed on MasterChef to watch American Ninja Warrior.  I did hear through the grapevine that Tali was finally sent home.

I watched Craft Wars which is hosted by Tori Spelling.  They must've caught her between buns in the oven.  This show is a little like Cupcake Wars for crafters but it's a little ludicrous.  They have 3 different people every episode.  They have an hour challenge and then after booting 1 person, they have a decorating kind of task w/ extra helpers and 5 or 6 hours.  In this episode, they had the crafters make birdhouses using items from a junk drawer.  Ok.  When it came to the judging, that's when the show got stupid.  Really?  They wanted the birdhouses to be functional and long lasting?  The people had only an hour.  I don't care how small it is, a house made out of quality long lasting materials can't be made in an hour and look good.  Geez.  I think I would've used my birdhouse to hit the judges over the head.  Then the crafters had to use beachy stuff to make furniture and stuff to make a decorated beach area.  You really didn't see the crafters utilizing their extra help very well but it's hard because decorating and crafting is kind of a design as you go thing.  Tori seemed to just get in the way of the crafters.  The judging criteria was confusing and the end products weren't that impressive.  Really, that chaise lounge made out of boogie boards didn't look comfortable at all.  I wasn't surprised that the guy won cuz he used major construction tools like welding and power saws so his stuff was bigger and well made.  Whatever.  It was a boring show.

Around the World in 80 Plates went to Argentina.  Avery paired up w/ Nookie cuz she was tired of losing the run around challenges, which left John and Liz as a team.  First they had to make 80 empanadas and then they had to sell 150 pesos worth.  I'm not sure what was going on but it took Liz and John forever to make the empanadas.  Maybe because John was standing around like a wooden indian statue.  He blamed Liz for burning the first batch of empanadas but she was busy mixing and cooking the filling and rolling and cutting the pastry.  Hey John, where were you?  You couldn't tell from the smell that the stuff in the oven was done?  I think I would've punched him in his big nose if I were Liz.  Finally the teams hit the streets to sell the meat pockets w/ Liz and John way behind.  Liz and John started selling 2 for 5 pesos and began to catch up.  Nookie finally got wise and sold the last of his team's empanadas to a vendor for a low price.  That was a good deal for the vendor.  So the Nook Man and Avery win and got the exceptional ingredient which turned out to be lessons on how to cook the native dishes.  John commented on how great he thought that was which was odd since he got that kind of exceptional ingredient before and never used it.  Whatever.  Was he tired or just stupid?  So all the contestants then went to a restaurant and sampled the local dishes.  John failed to notice everything had meat in it and decided to cook a no meat dish for the final challenge.  Avery did the offical BBQ of the goat, Nookie did the skirt steak w/ chimichurri and Liz did empanadas.  I couldn't believe Nookie cut his steak into strips instead of slanted against the grain.  Yeesh.  John made the comment, "I knew Argentinians ate meat but I didn't realize that's all they eat."  Yep, landlocked people tend to do that.  Liz made innovative empanadas that impressed the locals so much, they were asking for the recipe.  Of course the producers tried to throw off the viewers w/ the interviewing of the locals but in the end, Liz was named MVC.  Hee hee!  It was great cuz the triumvirate had to eat one of their own.  In the end Avery saved her BFF Nookie and John's trip ended.  By John!  Use the money you've earned for a nose job.  It'll help your cooking cuz you'll be able to smell when something's done in the oven.  Next week is the finale and I can't wait.  Go Liz!

ABC Family channel has a new show Baby Daddy.  Yep, a baby is left w/ 3 bachelors.  There's a girl who drops by and has a crush on the main guy and the main guy's mother drops in to criticize or give advice.  Wow!  How long ago was 3 Men and a Baby?  The energy is high and some of the scenes are funny but it all seems really re-hashed and unoriginal.  Finally, they did have an episode w/ the funniest part not being about the baby at all.  I knew it was going to happen.  I hate to say it but Taj Mowry and Melissa Peterman seem to hold up the whole show cuz when they're not in the scene, we're tuning out.  Also, the baby is boring and we're sick to death of poopy diaper and spitting up jokes.  Ick!

ID channel has brought out a whole lotta new shows but there's something wrong.  They're all about stuff we've already seen on other shows for the past 2 years.  Really?  There's no new crimes?  Hey writers, start doing your research cuz the news is full of new crimes all of the time.  I miss Law & Order.  Not only were their stories ripped from the headlines but they were ripped from recent headlines.

The Closer is back and many people missed it because the time was changed.  Brenda has such an unhealthy fixation on that lawyer who she thinks is a rapist that she can't seem to focus on the discussions at hand.  It's very weird and not like her very intelligent character.  We also missed her chocolate fixation.  I hope they bring back her parents for at least 1 episode before the series ends.  I know they're planning a spin-off but if Brenda's not in it, I doubt her parents will be showing up.  They mentioned Pope but didn't show him.  Was he off doing his insurance commercials?  Oh well, here's hoping the last 5 episodes are really memorable.

Well, that's about it.  Remember, Dallas and Drop Dead Diva are totally worth watching. See ya next time and until then, stay tuned.