Sunday, August 26, 2012

It's Raining Reality Shows!

Wow!  After quite a summer lull, reality shows have popped up for great entertainment.  Okay, I'd better get crackin' cuz there's a lot to cover.

Hell's Kitchen was down to 5 chefs.  The teaching challenge returned but this time the students were past Miss Teen USA's.  I admired that none were squeamish and really did try their darndest.  Nobody complained about chipping nails or getting splattered or even dirtying their hands.  The girls were quite competitive too.  The dish was chicken parmesan.  I thought Clemenza probably had this in the bag but he didn't.  Dana thought there's no such thing as too much mozzerella cheese.  Nuh-uh.  In the end, Barbie won and chose Justin to share the prize w/ her.  That was to be expected.  He's the only person who didn't treat her badly.  The prize turned out to be lunch at a restaurant which they totally milked.  There was much moaning w/ pleasure over the food and expressions of ecstasy.  Yeah, that food didn't look that great.  I think there was some off camera directing for that cuz some of it was overdone and I don't mean the food.  I also don't think it's classy to have overhead camera shots when someone is wearing a lowcut dress.  For Pete's sake, I thought an underdress shot would be next.  Yeesh.  Meanwhile, for punishment, the other 3 chefs had to make a lot of fresh pasta for dinner.  When Justin and Barbie returned, they made a nice pasta dinner which wasn't appreciated at all by the other 3 chefs.  I have a feeling that was done accidentally on purpose ha ha ha.  For dinner service, the chefs just had to run one kitchen and not compete.  Clemenza was his usual inept self and Barbie left her brain in the dorm.  For some odd reason, it took her several tries to get the risotto correct.  I'm thinking she may have been a little hung over from that lunch.  Even w/ all the mishaps, dinner was served but it was a painful ordeal.  So of course Barbie and Clemenza were on the chopping block and at least Barbie really deserved it this time.  Clemenza finally used up his 9th life and was booted to Hell's purgatory.  Bye Clemenza.  Take a shower for goodness sake.

MasterChef was also down to 5 chefs.  It was mysterybox time again but this time the cooks chose their own ingredients for any dish they wanted to make.  The twist?  It was mysterybox exchange!  They had to take on their neighbor's ingredients.  Oh boy!  Okay, here's the deal.  If you're any kind of cook at all, you can take any ingredients and make them taste good so I really wanted to tell the cooks, "Stop your whining."  At about this time in the season, this show gets kind of mundane.  As usual, one cook won, got an advantage for the next cooking challenge, didn't have immunity, one cook won and finally, Monti was sent home.  That last cooking challenge was to replicate a dish by Graham Bowles.  Hey Josh, don't tell a chef you're improving his dish.  Chef's have an ego and don't like that.  Oh well.  Bye Monti.  I'll miss her cuz she looked just like Anne Hathaway.

Face Off is back.  This season's makeup artists seem to be just as talented as last season's.  I have to say, I'm really wowed by their work.  First they had a kind of pool party mixer and found they were meeting their models.  I wonder if they got to choose?  Shawn Astin was there w/out furry feet, to give out the first challenge.  Use items at the party to make a cool makeup.  I liked that they showed a lot of the makeups and not just the top 3 and bottom 3 (hint hint to Top Chef).  The twin brothers landed in the top.  I don't think the other artists have any idea they're twins or even brothers.  Hee hee hee.  Of course the twin won ha ha ha.  I think the prize was immunity cuz he didn't have first choice of anything.  For the real challenge, the artists were paired up by random draw and had to make a creature to fit into the cantina scene of Star Wars.  This was cool cuz the creature could be anything from anywhere.  One thing I noticed was, there are middle aged experienced artists this season.  Hmmm...interesting.  I expect much professionalism and innovation from these guys.  Well, they passed my expectation.  I was totally amazed by the creatures that were turned out.  There were female alien slaves, monster types, animalistic types and one w/ the creature sitting in his machine which was all on a model.  OMG!  Sooooo....cooool.  Of course there was 1 pair that didn't get along w/ one guy getting on the nerves of the other.  Here's a clue.  When working w/ someone else, you have to nail down what you agree w/ because if you keep hedging, the other guy can't make up his mind and you end up w/ mishmash in the last few minutes.  That's exactly what happened.  The artists also did a good job of giving their creatures background stories and showing how they illustrated their imaginations.  Incredible!  I totally thought the little creature sitting in his machine was going to win but the judges loved something else.  Ok, they should know.  The winner was one of the experienced middle aged guys.  Yay!  Of course the bickering couple were in the bottom.  Nobody was sent home because the older guy of the Bickersons decided to call it quits.  I was surprised cuz I thought the younger guy would quit.  Oh well.  I can't wait to see what these artists crank out each week.

Top Chef Masters brought in yet another old musical group to judge the quickfire:  the Indigo Girls.  Looking at them made me feel really old.  Anyway, the chefs had to make a dish and then a vegetarian version of it.  Patricia thought 45 minutes was a generous amount of time, which when you consider last week, they only had 8 minutes for the quickfire, does seem like a long time.  Man, Art knocked out biscuit crusted pot pies which was impressive when it was shown he had to remake them due to forgetting which was which.  Who hasn't done that?  Everybody did really good except Patricia didn't get the broth in her bowl for the pho and Thierry made a side dish.  I was puzzled how Lorena made a soup and then her other dish was a sandwich.  That's the same dish?  Takashi stuck w/ his Japanese cuisine and won the immunity and cash again.  For the elimination challenge, the chefs had to do brunch for a pool party but in canape size.  Oh, yay.  What's w/ the eating outside all of the time?  The show jammed the shopping and cooking into less than 15 minutes to show the bacchanalia of slutty girls and hoochie boys at the pool.  James Oseland decided he wanted to prove he's out of the closet and not ashamed of it.  His antics were kind of skeevy considering his age.  I don't even want to know what happens behind his closed doors.  All the food was deemed delicious and this time, the bad word of the day was, "curious."  Art proved his prowess w/ the biscuits again and made teeny turkey burgers w/ them.  Lorena won the day w/ her bunuelos which looked very different than what I'm used to but maybe that was the Argentinian version. It proved fried foods work when eaten poolside w/ a lot of booze.  Oh yeah!  Chris, Patricia and Thierry landed in the bottom.  All 3 of these dishes were called curious for one thing or another.  Chris tried to be too gourmet for that white trash crowd.  Patricia promised pulled pork but chopped it instead.  Not the same at all.  Thierry promised a croque madame and did not make it the usual way.  That's the problem w/ making familiar dishes.  If you change them, then they're not what you promised and people don't like that.  Thierry was told to pack his knives.  Awww...bye Thierry, I'll miss your cute French accent.

GameShow Network introduced 2 new shows.  The first was a Bible trivia Challenge w/ 3 teams of 3.  It was interesting w/ the questions really easy in the first 2/3 of the show but that last round was no joke.  I learned there are some cool female names in the Bible.  I forgot there was a girl Michael.  The exuberance of the winning team made the show fun and Jeff Foxworthy was a host who actually knew the Bible.  Foxworthy has that Dick Clark forever youthful quality and he's really fun.  The 2nd show was a cooking competition putting regular people in a family cooking their signature dishes against celeb chefs not cooking their signature dishes called, Beat the Chefs.  This time, the chefs have to cook what the regular people cook.  It's an interesting twist but kind of boring.  There's a lot of hamming it up in front of the camera, a lot of posturing and bragging and a lot of non-cooking.  I was hoping someone would cut or burn themselves so that they'd shut up.  Someone did cut themselves and they still didn't shut up.  Eric Roberts seemed to be doing a friend a favor and was on the judging panel.  Funny thing was, he didn't seem to eat anything.  The other judges were unknowns and I figured, there was a reason they couldn't sell this to the Food Network.  Oh well, better luck next time GSN.

Project Runway had it's real woman challenge.  This is a good challenge to see if designers can actually dress something other than a mannequin.  The cool thing was friends put up their friend to get a makeover.  Some of the friends on the runway initially were men and I think some of the designers were shaking in their boots.  Nope, all the people being designed for were women.  They weren't chosen by the designers either and Ven pouted and pissed and moaned about getting a larger sized lady.  Really?  She was smaller than Ven and she was so nice that when he constantly spouted backhand compliments like, "You surprised me by how great you looked after the makeover."  "These belts are all too small for you."  "The black will make you look thinner."  She didn't say anything back.  Yeesh,  Ven had major hoof in mouth disease.  Christopher was making that cut it out sign to him a lot.  That poor lady was totally offended and reduced to tears as well as her friend w/ her.  Everyone else was nice to their ladies.  Gunnar proved he's only a douchebag to his competitors and made the cutest black dress for his large lady and was very gracious and nice.  Dmitry continued to say his hilarious comments.  I wonder if he knows he's funny?  He also made the cutest turquoise colored dress for his red-headed lady.  In the end Fabio won for getting his oriental butchy slouchy girl into a cute colorblocked dress.  Ven proved you can't design well w/ a bad attitude and got a scolding from Heidi and didn't seem to learn anything from it.  That black guy w/ the crooked teeth was auffed for making a dress his client told him how to make.  She had really bad taste and I swear, I've seen that dress on Brittany Spears 10 years ago.  These judges don't like old fashion.

America's Next Top Model returned w/ all college age girls.  The sponsors are totally new and the absence of Cover Girl, Elle and Vogue are pretty glaring.  I have a feeling the agency agreeing to take on the winner told Tyra they didn't want anyone over 25 like the last 3 winners.  There's was a new judge and a new photoshoot director.  The Jay's were nowhere in sight and I missed them terribly.  These new guys are boring and forgettable.  The other twist was the fans had a voice via twitter and facebook.  Yeah, I don't buy that cuz we all know Tyra determined all the winners in the past.  That's why Janice and Paulina were disgusted w/ the job.  I also missed seeing Nigel on the panel.  Tyra must've gotten tired of not being the sexiest thing on the panel.  Instead, she kept that dogfaced Kelly on the panel.  Ugh!  So, the girls did a runway show and then a photoshoot and then appeared in person in front of the panel for a little Q and A.  All the girls are supposed to be college students but some were questionable cuz they didn't prove they had much in the brains area.  The top 13 girls were announced and there were quite a few surprising leftouts.  I'm liking Jessie who's quirky, smart and humble.  We'll see how all the changes go this season.

NBC debuted 2 new comedies:  Animal Practice and Go On.  I can't say enough how tired I am of single camera comedies.  How about finding one cameraman who can keep the damn thing steady.  Anyway, Animal Practice is actually a cartoon w/ real players.  It's trying to be Scrubs w/ animals as patients.  Guess what, it's too dumb and unlike Scrubs, isn't like real life at all.  They try to use that cappuccine monkey as much as they can and that gets really old and kind of creepy.   The main vet guy seems like one of those doctors in commercials who say, "I'm not a doctor but I play one on TV."  The comedy was low grade and the physical comedy was hokey.  Yeah, I'm not watching.  Go On has Matthew Perry in an anger management kind of group w/ crazy and weird people.  Much rolling of eyes and sighing is what Perry's script consists of.  The writing was disjointed and not really that funny w/ the audience actually laughing at people who shouldn't be laughed at.  Uh oh.  I'll bet the boards lit up like Xmas trees.  Perry's going to need rehab for sure, after this show.

Well, that's about it for this week.  I know there are a lot more reality shows showing but I don't watch some like Bachelor Pad, Glass House and Big Brother.  I also refuse to watch anything w/ the word Jersey or Karcrashian in it.  If I'm going to watch white trash, it had better be funny and cute like The Beverley Hillbillies.  See you next time TV lovers.  Until then, stay tuned.

  





Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Back to Real Life; So to Speak

Well, well, well, the reality shows picked up and some are returning.  It's so much fun!  Here we go.

Hell's Kitchen had all the chefs on one team.  It was time for the recreate the dish challenge.  The chefs paired off into interesting teams:  Justin and Barbie, Christine and loudmouth braggart Robin, Dana and Clemenza.  I wasn't suprised that Dana and Clemenza won since Clemenza ate most of the demo dish.  Veal; Ick.  For the prize, they were treated to a jetski and beach picnic date.  Awww...Ew.  I'm sorry but Clemenza is nasty looking and a date w/ him wouldn't be a treat.  For punishment, everybody else had to press linens, polish glass and silver and tolerate that French maitre'd all day.  There was much eye rolling and sighing.  For dinner service, the chefs had to compete against a whole kitchen full of past season runner-ups.  Actually, it was kind of nice to see them again and it seemed they had mellowed.  Maybe because they weren't sleep deprived and on their last nerve.  For some odd reason, they had Robin and Clemenza on cold apps and floaters.  Talk about a non-dynamic duo.  They not only messed up their dishes, but got in the way and messed up other peoples' food too.  Poor Dana.  She was forced to accept help w/ her scallops from Clemenza due to Ramsay yelling in her face, "Let them help you."  Clemenza has a record w/ scallops.  He only cooks 1% of them right.  Eek!  Meanwhile, Robin was doing her usual, screw up and blame others thing.  So of course sweathog chef Clemenza messed up the scallops and Dana got pulled aside to get yelled at by Ramsay.  Really?  He chastised her for not overseeing the people helping on her station.  Really?  Who has time and it's not like these people haven't cooked before.  Yeesh.  I felt really bad for her and felt her frustration through the TV screen.  I expected Dana to give Ramsay the big finger when he turned his back but I guess she's classier than I am.  Meanwhile, the other kitchen of well rested and non-stressed experienced chefs are banging out their dishes like a well oiled machine w/ so little drama, the producers literally had to fabricate some.  In the end, the past chefs won the night and that was that.  Loud mouth braggart and sweathog were put up for elimination and rightly so.  Ramsay finally showed he wasn't suckered by Robin's boasting and loud promises of, "I can do this." and sent her to Hell's washroom where she will sit until they need chefs for the last challenge.  Bye Robin and shut up already.

MasterChef  was down to 6 cooks.  For their first challenge, they separated into 2 teams w/ all the women on one team and the men on the other after the choosing.  Interesting.  They had to cook in a kitchen preparing the restaurant's signature dishes.  It was a contest of which team could bang out their dishes and how well they could cook.  I have to say, the dishes were...different.  There was no using their Mom's recipe here.  The women were crack up funny because Christine is blind and Monty has a hearing impairment.  Really?  That was news.  No wonder she talks loud.  I'm sure the men were hampered w/ David's slowness and disorganization.  He's also a slob and I would never let him cook for me.  The men had a very slow start and made their diners very disgruntled.  That always makes the food taste worse than it usually is.  In the end, Becky, the women's team leader made it all work and they won.  The men were up for the elimination challenge which was cooking steaks to the right temps.  Wait!  First Frankie had to decide who got to sit out of the challenge.  He did a little maybe him and maybe him but eventually chose himself.  Duh.  He's no dummy.  I don't know if they didn't have enough time but neither David or that tall black guy got their well done steaks well done.  My sister would've been screaming, "It's still alive!"  Finally, David met his waterloo and had nowhere to hide and was sent to the MasterChef purgatory.  Bye David!  Take a shower and learn to cook burgers.

Top Chef Masters had a make a salad quickfire.  This show must love the B-52's cuz I swear, they seem to show up in one form or another every season.  Find some other vegetarians.  I'm sick of these guys.  Not only did the chefs have to make a salad but they had to do it in 8 minutes.  Really?  Why didn't they just tell everybody they didn't want anything cooked?  Lorena still found time to throw cauliflower on the grill.  She proved cooking actually counts in a cooking competition and won the immunity.  For the elimination challenge, the chefs were flown in helicopters to the Grand Canyon to cook in the wide open desert.  Oy!  I loved the way the chefs all raved about the situation but I'll bet it was a lot of editing.  Either that or the chefs are really nice, compliant and related to Pollyanna.  They also were paired in teams of 2 and had specific Native American proteins and vegetables to work with.  Interesting.  Patricia and Chris always pair up whenever they can and so do Art and Lorena.  I'm not sure how good a strategy that is because if they land in the bottom, one of them is going home.  Thierry and Takashi teamed up.  Thierry's veggie was Yucca but it wasn't the root starch that we all think of.  The problem was, Chef Aussie Curtis pronounced it Yu-ca and not Yuck-a.  Yucca is a spiky tree looking cactus that grows in the desert.  The part you eat is the fruit and it's kind of like a firm kiwi.  It threw him for a loop but he recovered well.  I loved the surprised look on Thierry's face when he cut into the Yucca fruit.  Takashi had venison which was cool cuz you don't hear of much venison in Japan.  The weather threw a wrench in some of the cooking but the chefs adapted pretty well.  The judges were joined by Native Americans to judge the food and they ate on the edge of a cliff.  Art and Lorena should never be able to present their food first cuz they like to gab about themselves, their friends, their family, their cultures, their habits, the goo between their toes, etc., while all the rest of the food is getting cold.  You could see Chris wanted to shove them off the cliff.  All the food was judged to be delicious and it looked great for having been cooked in the great outdoors.  In the end, Thierry and Takashi won and Clarke was sent home.  This time he really didn't do anything wrong, he just wasn't as spectacular as the others.  Usually they say keep it simple but it didn't work this time.  Bye Clarke, now you can hang out w/ your love bunny Mark.  Awww...

Project Runway had another team challenge.  Everybody hates team challenges; especially the designers.  They were split into 2 teams and rat faced Garcia was brought out to promo Elle and blah blah blah.  The designers had to make a collection for a fashionable working woman.  One team had 6 members and the other had 5 members, so were dubbed team 6 and team 5.  I'll let you figure out which was which.  Brilliant?  Not so much.  The designers first caucused to figure out who's going to do what and much posturing and bragging ensued.  Raul bragged he coud do anything.  Really?  All he's proved so far is he can do crap.  Team 5 decided each designer would work on their own look w/ similar material in each look.  Team 6 decided to piece out the work w/ someone doing all tops, another doing all skirts, etc.  Only Dimitry and that blonde chick did their own dresses.  The designers go to Mood where they run around crazy and yell out for each other.  Poor Swatch hid out so as not to be trampled.  When they returned to the workroom, they were told they only had 8 hours to work and that was it.  OMG!  Really?  Chinese sweatshop workers are thinking, "Geez, I have it easy."  Dimitry gave the best commentary lines ever:  "He's one way monkey. No, one trick pony."  "Even when people say they like Elena, they don't."  I was LOL so much, I had to rewind 3 times.  Dimitry, you're kind of creepy looking but I still love you, hee hee hee.  Meanwhile, he made a beautiful black and navy blue colorblocked dress.  Raul's team tried to give him some advice but he wouldn't listen.  Y'know, when you've already been kicked off once, maybe you should take some advice.  On the runway, there weren't any disasters.  Gunnar's model needed a bra.  The guy on team 5 who usually wears a turban had a dress that only a midwest 4-H mother would love.  Raul showed he made crap again and Sonjia proved her skirts can make a crappy top look like a great outfit.  The teams were tied for points but in the end, Team 6 prevailed and that blonde chick won w/ her beautiful blue shift dress and Daniel Vosovitch collar.  Gunnar and Raul landed in the bottom but Raul was awarded the boot.  Bye Raul, next time you audition for a reality show, make sure you can actually do what the show's about.  Oh yeah and get rid of that ugly Squiggy hair thing you've got going on.  It's not attractive or stylish whatsoever.

America's Got Talent is really whittling down the acts and this time, it seems America is saying, "We're sick and tired of singers winning all of the time."  I was very surprised that unique artistic acts were kept by the voters.  I loved when the singers would look like, "I've got this in the bag." and then would find they were booted.  Yay!  The animal act, earth harp guy, sand artist, light show, and young dancers were among those who were kept for the next round.  I was pleasantly surprised.  Maybe I'll actually watch and not just the results shows.

The Great Food Truck Race has a new thing.  The racers don't have any experience working a food truck.  Nope, the racers are cooks or chefs who want to start a food truck.  They're given food trucks and sent on their way.  The first challenge is just to learn to stock, drive and park their trucks.  It was really interesting to see and made us realize that it is more complicated than they've shown before.  We can see these people also may not have any business experience either so it's really learning on the go.  The food concepts were stuff we've seen before so it was clever of the producers to put this new twist on the competition.  It's almost like a whole new show.  Hopefully, the Koreans won't cheat this year.  As always, the elimination comes down to money earned.  The pie truck people went too low on their pricepoint for their product and made the lowest amount of money I've ever heard in this show.  They were sent home and their truck confiscated.  Bye and take your stupid sob story w/ you.  For goodness sake, why don't people do a little research and practice before a competition show?  It's not like they spring it on them all of a sudden.  Yeesh.

The Closer ended and it's spin-off, Major Crimes started.  First, I'd like to say, I'm going to miss The Closer.  It was a great show w/ great writing and spectacular acting from everyone from stars and regulars to guests.  I have to say, it was the saddest ending to a series ever.  Brenda's Mother died and her Dad had cancer and faced coping alone.  Even Joel, the cat, looked sad.  So the Major Crimes show started and I was very hopeful.  Even though it's the same team of guys, it's not the same.  The show has a different rhythm, energy and chemistry.  They've made Provenza gruffer and louder when he was much funnier saying things under his breath.  The chemistry seems tense.  Mary McDonnell drives me crazy w/ her slow and precise line delivery which shows she's really a stage actor.  Everytime she speaks, the scene slows to a snail's pace.  I don't care for the bratty kid.  Find his mother and send him on his way already.  He shows no range so we're not sympathetic to his plight at all.  I'm thinking his Mother abandoned him for a darn good reason.  The concept of the show is kind of frustrating.  They do solve the murder cases but it's all about plea bargaining which never gives the audience that satisfied feeling.  It's reality that we don't really want to know about.  The scenes that work are the scenes that have always worked:  analyzing the crime scene, scenes w/ the M.E. and grilling the suspects.  Everything else feels like hot air and filler.  I hate to say it, but they need to change the lead.  I know how producers want to keep from having an all male ensemble but if the show is great, we don't mind.  It's better than making the woman be the only hated character.

Well, that's it.  I'm really excited to see Face Off  and America's Next Top Model are going to be kicking off their new seasons.  Woo Hoo!  Until then people.  Stay tuned.







Tuesday, August 14, 2012

During the Olympics

Hello all.  I know the Olympics are over.  Thanks to NBC re-running it's primetime telecast and poor production, I was able to see my fave shows but some shows were chicken and ran re-runs themselves.  The Olympics telecast wasn't great.  NBC has a really bad habit of showing more talk and in show commercials for it's shows than actual competition.  I watched a lot more NBCSN (sports network).  Michelle Beadle was a great host who knew what she was talking about but didn't have to hog the camera time.  Also, she always seemed fresh and fun too w/ that glint in her eye that told you she wasn't taking anything too seriously.  They also showed a really wide variety of events on that channel too.  I heard the name of our champion swimmer wayyyy too many times.  How come it took a whole week to hear the British National anthem when Great Britain had won 5 gold medals already?  I love to hear everybody partying and singing; even if it's not Americans.  NBC needs to get rid of it's old dinosaurs like Bob Costas and Al Michaels but not bring in dumb twits like Ryan Seacrest.  At least they didn't do all those athlete profiles they loved to use to waste time.  With today's internet, we can look up bios ourselves.  Oh well.  I hear they have the Olympics contract through 2020.  Good Lord.  Maybe by then, we'll be able to see the games in virtual reality or something and won't have to even hear the letters NBC.

Ok, enough of the ranting.  Let's get to the shows that actually had the stones to air during the Olympics.

Top Chef Masters had a wedding episode.  This time it wasn't a wedding wars.  No teams and everybody had to do their own dish.  Oh wait, they couldn't start w/out hearing the bride and groom's sob stories:  dead maid of honor and scammed out of venue deposit.  Really?  That was it?  I've heard worse.  At least there's leeway w/ the food because the couple is Asian and not vegan, diabetic, heart healthy or some other weird dietary quirk.  So the chefs pow-wow a bit and then set off to shop for ingredients.  I love this section of the show cuz some chefs run around like madmen (Chris Cosentino) or women and some chefs toodle around like a day in the park (Thierry and Art Smith).  Ok, so the chefs got cooking.  Art Smith worked on the cake and it was pineapple upside down.  Really?  For a wedding?  These people are Asian not white trash.  He also made sure to drop some famous names to really make his cake taste good.  Geez.  He and Cosentino also got into it over the ovens.  I think Cosentino is the only person who doesn't let Art sweetly steamroll over him in the way those southerners can do.  At the wedding, the chefs all helped each other plate and all of the food seemed to be delicious.  Patricia Yeo (I think that's her name) was declared the winner w/ her spoonful of tasty treat.  The bottom 3 consisted of the unfortunates.  The people who just didn't have luck w/ them that day were Art who had the leaning tower of cake, Mark w/ his unplanned sashimi salmon and the blonde chef chick who grilled her cabbage.  The blonde chick left and I still don't know her name.  Bye!

Last week on Top Chef Masters, the chefs had a quickfire, unlike last week when they just gave them more time for the wedding.  The quickfire consisted of cooking any type of seafood they wanted except w/out heat.  A lot of crudo, ceviche and carpaccio ensued.  The funniest part was when the chefs noted that Chef Takashi had the advantage.  I loved the face he pulled at them.  It was LOL classic.  Well guess who showed up to judge; Brian Boitano.  Patricia thought he was a good judge but we didn't get to see him taste her dish.  Long story short, Takashi won and nobody was surprised.  I loved the fact that he mainly did his garnish and sauce the whole time and in the last five minutes cut the fish and plated.  He made the whole thing look easy and unstressful.  For the elimination challenge, the chefs had to work in teams of 3 and cook teppanyaki style.  Oh boy!  Art and Chris landed on the same team after the knife pull and I was just hoping Chris wouldn't put his fist through Art's face somewhere down the line.  The frantic shopping trip went off w/out a hitch except Thierry stopping to get a 1 minute massage while at the store.  Chris had a bit of a fit w/ that one.  As it turned out, each team had 30 minutes to cook and serve all their dishes.  Yikes!  Now you would think chefs who are not young have experienced and observed teppanyaki food before but maybe their lives are all about their own food and work.  Whatever.  The white team is up first.  Heffernen made something Asian, Mark made scallops and Lorena made flied lice.  Lorena was the time caller which made sense since she was the one who had to cook last and in order to have her own time, she had to push everybody along.  Unfortunately, they didn't want to taste test their food in front of the judges.  Well why the heck not?  I had a teppan chef taste his fried rice in front of me and it didn't bother me a bit.  If that's what it takes to make the food taste good, go for it.  I also wasn't sure about mango juice in the fried rice.  Ick.  Next up, yellow team which was Takashi w/ immunity, Patricia and Mark's Husband.  Takashi made a squid dish w/ pancake but instead of using rice flour which would've made them delicate, he used wheat flour which made them more crepey.  Mark's Husband threw lobster tails on the grill in their shell.  That was different.  Patricia made some Korean golgi which was smart since a lot of Korean meat dishes are grilled on a flattop.  Finally, the red team of Art, Thierry and Chris were on.  While setting up their carts to push out to the grille, Chris gave Art one task which was to put the mandoline on his cart when he was done w/ it.  That seemed easy and why didn't Art have his own mandoline?  So Art made cheesey grits and shrimp.  I love that he intended for his grits to be in cakes but when they fell apart, he just went with it and served them in a little pile.  Since Art likes to give long narratives about his food, Chris had to push him along.  Chris cooked next and found Art didn't leave the mandoline for him and a nice curseword was issued.  Hee hee hee.  I wouldn't have let Art use the mandoline in the first place.  Chris learned his lesson.  Anyhoo, Chris made a Korean meat dish too and Mary Sue Miliken who was judging, gave a smile when she saw him tasting his sauce.  Thierry ended the day w/ dessert and made crepes.  He found it's very hard to babysit a lot of crepes at once on a very hot grill.  When it came to judging, the judges remarked that they didn't get to see much showmanship from some of the chefs?  Are you kidding?  They only had 10 minutes and no practice.  They didn't even get tips from a teppanyaki chef.  The red team won the day.  Of the red team, Art came out the winner.  He set alcohol on fire and the judges called that a show.  Ok.  Art Smith took it w/ the giddy elation of a little girl at her birthday party.  The white team landed on the bottom.  They were criticized for not enough seasoning and not enough show.  Mark was sent home for overcooked scallops.  Too bad.  He always made me think of what Macauly Culkin should've looked like as a grown up.  Bye Mark, go home and practice cooking seafood.

Project Runway didn't hide out either.   The challenge for the week was to make a red carpet dress but work in teams of 2.  Oh and they had past season contestants as clients.  I'm not sure why, but they met their clients in different parts of town.  Wouldn't it have saved time and money to just have them meet at Parson's?  It's not like they took inspiration from the meeting place.  Oh but they did get in the car commercial by having the teams pair up around a car and demanding the car color be part of the dress.  It was kinda cheesey.  I felt really bad for Gunnar and Kooan the Kooky Kabuki.  They met w/ Irena and she's just as bitchy as ever.  Ven and his sewing partner met up w/ Kenley who lied about herself w/ a smile plastered on her face, "I'm classic and vintage but modern and fashionable."  Uh huh.  I think she invented quad oxymoron.  Dmitry and his girl goth partner had purple haired goth girl from a past season.  Michael was paired up w/ haggy old Andrea and they had Anya who basically told them not to copy her, but in a nice way.  The depressed Russian girl had that crazy English punk girl and their client was Laura who wasn't pregnant and much nicer than usual.  Finally, Sonjia was paired up w/ that black guy and their client was Valerie who was really nice as usual.  So on to Mood and we got to see Swatch trying to avoid the cameraman.  Awww...who's a shy little puppy?  Back to Parsons and those cheap brother sewing machines.  Halfway through the work Tim Gunn showed up w/ each client to peruse the work.  A lot of I don't like that, I don't think you should use that, and that doesn't look right happened.  I think the clients were told not to give any design advice or help.  The porkpie hat, Raul, and girl team really needed help cuz both said they only did menswear?  Really?  Even the girl?  So instead of making a killer suit, they attempted a gown.  Not smart; Doh!  Gunnar and Kooan had to repair a saggy butt thing on the gown they made for Irena and to hide the backside mess, they threw a train on her.  Valarie looked great in her gold sequined gown.  I didn't understand goth girl's gown which looked like a square of satin draped on her w/ the open back.  Laura looked like the mother of the bride w/ some weird pink sheeth covered by black diaphanous pleated something but it did have big shoulders.  Poor Anya, who can make a potato sack look good, had to wear that crap colored dress that made her look like the homesewn wallflower at the prom.  Even though her dress was too short and made of weird bathrobe material w/ puckered seams, she made it work but the look on her face said, "God, how I hate this mess."  Kenley beebopped out in a navy blue short dress w/ cool constructed bodice and poodle skirt w/ out the poodle.  Finally, Mila came out in her badly constructed black dress w/ red piping made by the people who only do men's wear.  Unfortunately, she looked like an amateur drag queen.  Somehow Gunnar and Kooan made top 2 teams.  Really?  Was Irena holding a large handbag in front of her dress?  Ven and his partner were also on top and w/ a lot of giggling and nasally gushing from Kenley, they won.  Poor Ven was declared the ultimate winner w/ the prize being attending the Emmy's w/ Kenley.  Is that a prize or a punishment?  The porkpie hat guy and girl who dressed Mila were declared the losers and the Raul, the porkpie hat wearer, was sent home.  In the last 2 minutes of the show, we found Andrea was MIA.  Yay!  The whole show became much better looking.

Last week, they let the Project Runway designers work alone again.  I'm glad to see less group projects.  The designers hate it and we feel for them.  First though, what happened to Andrea?  Nobody knew except one lady who found her missing in the middle of the night.  Kooan was also not looking well and said as much.  The designers met at Michael Kors' studio and the group was told Andrea's fine but gone.  I found out that when designers are eliminated, they don't really go home.  They're sequestered in another place but still have to hang around the designers so people can't see who's been eliminated.  The way Andrea left, she basically escaped.  I guess those cameramen sleep after all hee hee hee.  WTG and I hope they don't sue her for breach of contract.   So for the challenge....wait.  Kooan wants to leave too.  Oh boy!  He graciously bows out; literally.   Well bye then.  He was cannon fodder anyway.  The challenge was given;  make a look for a woman on the go.  What the heck does that mean?  Is that a traveling woman?  Is it a woman who works in an office til late and then wants to have cocktails after work?  Is that a sporty woman?  Is that a woman who chases kids around all day?  Tim and Mikey told everyone it's all about non-wrinkle material.  Ohhhhh....  On to Mood and we saw Swatch dart in and out of 1 shot while the designers ran around like mad.  At Parsons, Raul was brought back to make up for the missing designers and proceeded to look like a dumb schmuck by bragging how good he is.  Uh huh.  Ok, so they showed a lot of sewing, Gunn's critique and the usual designer panic.  Raul was the last out of the room and literally threw accessories onto his model.  Raul landed on the bottom w/ his ugly pants and weird no shape top.  So did that English punk girl who had a poorly made pink sheath covered by a diaphanous black overlay.  Hey, wasn't that kind of what she made last week?  Except the pink dress last week was made by the Russian girl who can sew.  Also on the bottom was the turbaned black guy who's dress I didn't mind too much.  On the top was Sonjia w/ the cutest charcoal grey dress, Dmitry w/ a cute charcoal grey dress (I'm sensing a theme here) and someone else.  Sonjia is declared the winner and Buffy, English punk girl, is auffed.  Bye!  Work on your sewing skills on your downtime.  You never know if you'll be pulled back onto the show again.

Well, that's about it.  Next post will review the new spin-off of The Closer; Major Crimes.  Until then loyal TV watchers. Stay tuned.