Fall TV has returns of oldies but goodies, premieres of some good and some bad and then there's the rest. In this day of modern TV programming, the networks aren't very patient. In the old days, they listened to somebody else and gave a show a chance to be noticed. Sometimes, by the time I hear about a show or find it, the network has already cancelled it and I only get to see 3 or 4 episodes. It's such a shame. Note to the network execs. Don't always listen to the critics. They seem to be old crotchety uptight ultra sensitive people or so young all they want is fast moving action. A lot of times you don't really know how good or bad the show is until a few weeks go by. That's when you see if the writers are rehashing or stealing old ideas. Ok, well on to the shows.
The Great Food Truck Race had it's finale w/ Nonna's Kitchenette (Jersey girls) and the Seoul Sausage truck (Koreans). This time, they didn't just race around a big city, they raced from town to town. It was kind of impressive but I'll bet it was exhausting. You know a lot of time was spent on the road and I don't think they can do prep or any cooking while the truck is rolling. At least when they film, that's what it looks like. Of course they had a truckstop and the Jersey girls won a 3 hour headstart while the Koreans had to shuck clams. The Jersey girls commented that the Koreans kept parking next to them. Yeah, I wondered about that too. How come they weren't told to find their own spot? It seemed rather lazy to me but the Jersey girls kind of got back at them by telling the customers in line, that the Korean service was slow. Here's a clue; if you're parked across town, it's tough for the competitor to steal your customers. One town they had to go to was very small, so the trucks were told they had to sell items for $2 or less. That's better than the $1 items last season. I liked the ending better because it didn't come down to who made it to the finish line first. Ok, yes, I realize it's a show w/ Race in the name but still it's food trucks and the name of the game is selling food. This time the winner was determined by who had made the most money. It was close but Seoul Sausage truck won and got to keep their truck and a good chunk of money. They got a bag full of bills and I expected them to roll around in it but nope. Once again, they didn't serve any sausage. That's kind of weird and as a customer, I would've been quite disappointed. It reminds me of the time my family traveled to the East coast and found a place called The Fisherman and it was a burger joint that didn't serve any fish. Weird. My parents never learned to ask locals about good places to eat.
The Amazing Race is back and I think they've started in California. I think the producers have given up on different start cities because Phil didn't even say what city they were in to begin. The teams are diverse but kind of like other seasons. There's the Father/Daughter team, Twins, the quirky, the gay team, the white trash, the married couple, the engaged couple, etc. So the teams set out for China after rappelling down a cliff to get their first clue and making a mad dash for the airport. At the airport, one team ducked under the lane ropes at the gate to get ahead of other teams. Hey, I say good for them. I like to see fierce competitors who shun social manners and remind the other pansy racers that it's a race for crying out loud. I may be in the minority of viewers in this day and age of kinder and gentler. Yeah, ick. I also hate that No Child Left Behind thing too. In China the first task had 1 team member playing pingpong against a very young person who used funny items like saute pans, tamborines and clipboards for his paddle. I thought it was hilarious. They had to play in turn w/ the Chinese player moving to the next table after a point was lost so the task took longer than you'd think. The black sisters team had one yelling at the other a lot which unnerved the Chinese. You could tell the Chinese player got fatigued because the teams seemed to win all at once. Then they had to go to a place and eat frog fallopian tubes. Double Ick!!! They looked nasty and I wondered if they tasted nasty as well. The clue told the racers they weren't able to pick up the serving vessel which forced them to either use the chopsticks or their fingers. Every team followed the clue except the monster truck white trash couple and he had to eat twice as much as the other teams. Ew. Then the teams showed whether they had any intelligence or not. They had to find a lady using an abacus. I loved the clips of teams running back and forth right in front of the lady. It was obvious they didn't know an abacus from a hole in the wall. I wondered why people didn't ask strangers if they saw her because I don't think that's a normal thing to see someone just sitting outside w/ an abacus. The smart teams were able to get ahead at this point. One leading team asked another team about it and they were dumb enough to tell them. There's a cool twist to this season. If the team who comes in first in the first leg of the race ultimately wins the whole thing, they get 2 million semoleans. This was not a time to give any help to another team. I would've been mean enough to really misdirect them like, she's in a boat and the abacus is colorful chopsticks. It was a crucial mistake because the team that asked, made it first to the finish mat just by being faster on foot. I have a feeling the producers won't have to shell out the 2 mill cuz this team isn't very bright. The father/daughter team came in last and thank you producers for not making it a non elimination leg. I got so tired of those last year that I actually did skip a few episodes and watched them weeks later on-line. I have hopes for an exciting season and I hope the teams take their gloves off and keep their eyes on the prize. We'll see.
Face Off had cool challenges. First for the quick challenge, they brought back eliminated artists and had them do makeup w/ a Dia de la Muerta theme. You could tell the people who were very familiar w/ the theme and who weren't. Ultimately, all the makeup looked pretty good but Nicole was declared the winner and was brought back into the competition. WTG girl! For the main challenge, the artists were paired up w/ children who had drawn their own vision of a monster. It was quite whimsical and interesting to note, even though the monsters had scary stuff like big teeth, multiple body parts or horns, they weren't scared of their monsters. I have a feeling these children were fans of the movie Monsters Inc. Billy Crystal's voice could never be a scary thing. The artists worked very well w/ the children really fleshing out their ideas from the crude drawings and having a real description from the kids. The artists final sketches were so cool; I was flabbergasted by their talent. Then the artists had to make the look. I kept wondering what Roy was doing. He's wicked talented and they only showed about 15 seconds of him working and hid his work by filming him standing in front of it. Again, I was impressed by those who made a great overall look that didn't look so anthropomorphic. Laura, who's really quiet but fierce made a fuzzy body that she didn't think would work. Roy literally had a face on one arm of the monster; crazy cool. Unfortunately, his monster had technical problems. Alana has a weird fixation w/ pink paint and tends to use it on all her looks. Maybe she likes to match her hair. Sarah somehow pulled all her look together in the last hour. Wow, she must be some kind of speed demon. I was surprised to note the artists had all their models standing up straight. I would think this would've been a time to have a look on a crouching model. If the models weren't so skinny, the looks probably would've been less human looking. Oh well. In the end Laura won w/ her green fuzzy bodied Jabba the Hut and Rod was sent packing. Bye Rod. You were so cool and fun, I'll miss you. BTW, you rocked! I thought your monster was cool, but maybe too human looking.
The Challenge: Battle of the Seasons was sans Team Austin. Nobody seemed to notice. The show loves to show pairings and we saw fatty Eric getting cozy w/ Devyn, Jonnae w/ a white guy I can't remember his name, Sarah getting really cozy w/ Alton and a couple of younger players rekindling their romance from their season. I say, Yay Sarah. She deserves a nice guy after futiley chasing after douchebags in previous seasons. She also gets dazzled by strong athletic guys and that's Alton, alright. Meanwhile, Trishelle thought Sarah had ulterior motives. Really? I call that projecting cuz Trishelle would totally use a guy to get ahead in the game and use him as a shield from the arena. Ok, so on to the challenge. It was quite precarious w/ the teams having to make their way across a steel hill of bars w/ only big iron hooks. BTW, did I mention the big steel structure was high in the air over water? All I can say is, the builders are quite impressive and seem quite handy w/ the welding torches. Since Team Las Vegas won the previous challenge, they got to determine the lineup. That poor Fresh Meat team was sent in first again. Fatty Eric showed everyone what it looked like when a person fell from the steel structure; looked painful. You'd think in his spare time he'd be doing pushups or lifting weights. So once again, Team Las Vegas won and Team Fresh Meat was in the very bottom. It seems to be a running theme and I'm afraid it's going to stay that way until that Fresh Meat team is eliminated. I like that the losing team is automatically in the Arena and don't get to determine their opponents. For the Arena, Las Vegas sent in Team Brooklyn (Sarah's team) after much arguing. You can't blame Alton for wanting to spare Sarah but I don't think Sarah told him to do that. Trishelle not only told people Sarah was using Alton, but that Sarah wouldn't volunteer to compete in the Arena for her team. Well, Trishelle was wrong hee hee hee. Way to show those balls Sarah. The Fresh Meat team couldn't make up their minds who should compete cuz Cara Maria didn't want to take her turn. Las Vegas got to choose and gave fatty Eric a reprieve and sent in Cara Maria and Brandon. They also chose the strategy game. It looked really tough. The teams had to tangle a big old long rope that was tied to them all over and around a dome shaped jungle gym. Then they switched and had to untangle what the other team had done. This game required intelligence, stamina and athleticism which really describes Sarah. She did a really good job of leading Chet and Chet did a really good job of letting her lead. Was it a surprise that Sarah and Chet won? Nope. Cara Maria pointed out that now ugly Camilla was stuck w/ fatty Eric. Yowza, what a team. If next week's challenge involves eating, team Fresh Meat may have a chance. I wonder if the producers will skew it that way or not? We'll see.
Survivor is getting dull because each show is looking like the previous one. They need to show more scenes of camplife because it just looks like the people are standing around conniving but aren't very bright about it. The thing that separates this show from Big Brother is the primitive living. We know a lot of the game is social manipulation but so are most of the other reality game shows. This time there wasn't so much rain. The tough talking hispanic lady w/ the accent found the HII (hidden immunity idol) but then let the guy have it and proceeded to brag she found it. He didn't look amused and I wonder if she let him keep it w/ him? Bad mistake if she did because if it's not in your possession, you can't use it. This season is showing an obvious winner team and an obvious loser team. The blue loser team pointed out the obvious, "We're down to 4.", "We need to win." On the yellow team, Lisa's agreeing to vote out Michael if they go to tribal council. Yeah...I don't think so. On the red team, they speculated Johnathan had the HII and he finally just told them he did. Then they proceeded to plan a blindside if they went to tribal council. Yeah...I don't think so. Ok, so on to the challenge. It involved people retrieving round floaty puzzle pieces from a rope somehow tied to the bottom of the ocean. I wondered how they did that cuz the contestants weren't able to just pull the rope up to get to the floaty pieces but they were able to use the rope to help them descend under water. Then the floaty pieces were strung on a rope in puzzle fashion and a word was unscrambled from letters on the pieces. Got that? I knew it was trouble for the blue team when it involved swimming and stamina. Par for the course, Russell proved to be quite lame and Angela, Ashley or whatever her name was, was hampered by her own implanted flotation devices. So really, the blue team only had 2 people doing all of the work. Michael, on the yellow team, busted his water goggles right in his face by diving into the water w/ them on. There must be a technique to it cuz Olympic swimmers do it all of the time w/ out breaking their goggles. Hmmm... He looked quite the primitive warrior w/ blood running from his orbital areas. Luckily, he didn't damage his eyeballs. Okay, so long story short, the red team won first and got a big fishing kit, canoe and immunity. Yellow team came in second and won a small fishing kit and immunity. You guessed it! Blue team won nothing but a trip to tribal council. There was a little back and forth between blonde girl or Russell. The other 2 couldn't decide who was the weaker member. At tribal, the whole thing was hashed out and blonde girl tried to make her excuses but only dug her grave deeper. Russell was tired and weak and talked in circles. In the end, the team decided the blonde girl was the weakest link and voted her out. I did notice that at least the votes make a little sense this year. The team is trying to retain it's most athletic people but it doesn't help when the team was weak people from the very start. I think the show will let the team whittle down to 2 people and then just put them on the other tribes. Maybe they'll mix up the tribes cuz if they just distribute the last 2 blue members to the other tribes, they're going to be dead meat. We'll see. Meanwhile, Zzzzz...
The debate between Obama and Romney was a good reality show in itself. I realized how spot on Jay Pharoah's impression of Obama is on SNL. How come I never noticed that growling Ughhh... sound before Obama speaks, before? Sorry to say, after all the finger pointing, promises and mild digs, I still think both speak w/ forked tongues. I think Romney practiced a lot lot lot and he was declared the winner by well... almost everybody. Wow! WTG Willard! Also, I appreciated how they kept it short and didn't bother the TV lineups. Yay! I liked them a little more.
I watched Life After Top Chef and y'know what? I discovered, I didn't really care much what happened to the chefs after Top Chef. We have Twitter now and I didn't learn anything new and watching people cook w/out instruction and competition is kind of boring. There wasn't even a dinner rush scene like they have on Kitchen Nightmares. How come the people don't seem as interesting and exciting as they did during their Top Chef seasons? I'm thinking the editors and producers of Top Chef are better than I thought. To sum it up, I suggest you don't watch the show and just follow the chefs on Twitter. At least they tell you there, what they're cooking.
Project Runway was down to 5 designers and kept saying this was the show that would determine the finalists. I didn't believe them. The poor designers were looking very exhausted w/ big undereye circles and droopy shoulders. They also smile less. They still haven't recovered from those stupid baby dolls from the last challenge. Curses on the producers for doing that to them! I hope every baby they encounter pees, drools or vomits right into their mouths. Ok, I'll shut up about that. So the designers were told they'd go to a far far away place. I too thought they'd take a cool trip like they did in Jeffrey's season. Nope, they went to a castle that I've never heard of and didn't even get to go inside. Whatever. It's a stupid makeup themed challenge. Didn't they already have one of these this season? It's not like the models don't wear dramatic makeup during the regular challenges. The makeup company showcased a fantasy line and they based them on kind of fairytale women: evil enchantress, artsy muse, mystic, huntress or something like that. You get the idea. I was thinking they would make fantasy Barbie dresses like you see during the Holidays. At Mood, Swatch was underfoot but unharmed. Probably because everyone gravitated to the gaudy materials. Oh and the designs had to be avante garde. When I think avante garde, I think a lot of Vivien Westwood w/ her outlandish but cool looks that only Lady Gaga would dare to wear in public; artistic but not wearable by the normal person. Poor Sonjia found her main gold lame material missing. I wondered why she wasn't able to retrieve it but then I learned the bags from Mood are given to PA's to take back to Parsons. Maybe the bag was lost in transport. If so, she should've been able to buy the material again. Totally unfair! Fabio worked on what looked like a transparent dress and a coat you could wear upside down. It reminded me of that upside down shirt dress made in a previous season. None of the rest of the looks looked even close to avante garde. Dmitry made a short dress that looked gorgeous and cool but not fantasy or avante garde. Christopher's black gown looked better going than coming w/ strange feathers on the arms. He has a stick figure model and made her look fat and shapeless from the front. It didn't help that she has no shape to fill out the clothes and she's dull as dishwater on the runway. Fabio made his transparent dress into palazzo pants that I swear gave the model camel toe. Ew. Sonjia ended up w/ a green dress that had way too much opaque flesh colored mesh that didn't match the model's skin. Kors hated it to the max. Melissa had a colorful gown w/ a high collared vest. Heidi shocked me and made me LOL at the same time when she said, "I can't decide who's look is uglier, your's or Fabio's." to Melissa. Oh dear, that was kind of harsh. Even though it wasn't very avante garde, the judges loved Dmitry's look. Then the designers were asked who they'd want to go to Fashion week w/ them. I hate that. You know it's tough on the designers because they've all become close. It's hard to say something like that in front of the person you're talking about. But they did it and I noticed nobody said Sonjia's name. Awww...why not? Dmitry was declared the winner and poor Sonjia was auffed. Well shoot. I was really hoping to see her collection. Bye Sonjia, see you at the reunion.
America's Next Top Model stopped showing Kristen as a mean girl. That was nice of them. For the challenge, the models traveled in RV's in 2 teams, made pitstops and had to do random acts of modeling. It was a hilarious concept but some of the girls didn't understand it. You have to look like you're doing an everyday thing but do a pose while doing it. Also, they had to film a snip of a commercial w/ another girl holding the filming Ipad. So after a lot of running around, snapping photos and such, Laura was declared the winner. I think her prize was having her snippet shown on website. Hmmm...I wondered if she got paid for it? During the show, we also realized that Victoria has a scary attachment to her mother. If her mother should die suddenly, that girl will be royally screwed. Being away from her mother has even made her taste buds die. The other girls comment on her weight loss and she is looking more wan. The photoshoot was strange w/ the girls in cute dresses but in gross situations like laying in a dumpster of trash, licking soda off of the floor, puking in a toilet, etc. Ugh. Not only that, the girls didn't get a break after the runaround challenge from the day. They did a really great job at not looking exhausted, but they are young. Victoria always makes a scenario to go w/ her shoot and this one was rambling and hilarious. Maybe that's what exhaustion and being undernourished does to you. Judging has become predictable and boring. It seemed ugly Cutrone and that dumb male model have finally given in to Tyra and gave similar scores to Tyra's. This time, they showed only nice comments from online people. That was nice of them. Sometimes I wonder what they're looking at. Victoria's photo looked like tired girl sitting on the toilet. They loved it. Huh? In the end the girl who's photo was licking the soda off of the floor was sent home. Yeah, I kind of saw that coming cuz she was in a pose that didn't show off her body and then failed to engage the camera. Laura was also on the bottom 2 but I think her challenge win saved her.
I was able to see The Middle. Man, are those writers up w/ the times. Frankie was let go from her job and I felt for her when she voiced big plans and then realized, deep down, she didn't want to do them. The rest of the season should be funny to watch Frankie wrestle w/ what she can do vs. what she should do vs. what she wants to do. Also, the family will be living on less which is a theme widely known in this economy. The Big Bang Theory was bumped to a late night viewing by the local network for football. I hate football. Those guys can't stick to a time schedule to save their lives. 5 minutes on the clock turned into 40 in real life. Ugh. At least the stupid Cardinals were spanked by the other team. Raising Hope is officially back and funny as usual. It was really cool to see the Mother/Daughter team of Tippi Hedren and Melanie Griffith on the show. I never knew how funny Hedren is. She was the funniest corpse since Weekend at Bernie's. I've been trying to watch Elementary but something always goes wrong. The network showed Hawaii Five-O instead once and they cut it the next time.
Well, that's enough for now. I know I didn't cover a lot but hey, I gotta stop before the blog becomes an encyclopedia. Keep watching and until next time people, stay tuned.
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