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.