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.