And...There it is

Hello fellow competition reality show watchers.  It's quite the exciting season.  I love the way the reality shows show they've had good planning by ending their shows right before the Holidays bump them or integrate the holiday theme into the show.  Unfortunately, I haven't been faithful w/ this blog and have to cram more than one episode into my synopses.  Oh alright, I'll get to it.

The Amazing Race went to the Netherlands.  The racers acted more like high schoolers and also, it seems they no longer camp together at the pitstop.  The alliance of 3 teams waited w/ baited breath to see who had survived after the double u-turn plan.  Everybody rejoiced to see the goat farmers aka the Beekman Boys.  They weren't really glad that they survived, they were just happy not to see the other white couple whom they didn't like.  Hmm...kinda catty.  The twins really showed they have no grace by yelling out, "We gotta lose these fools."  BTW, after landing in the Netherlands, they had to drive themselves around so it started out like a caravan.  The twins found you do need to actually learn to drive a stickshift and it might take more than 1 lesson.  When they told everybody how they skipped out on things like tennis lessons or driving lessons, it told us a lot about them and it wasn't good.  Maybe it was the editing but the twins seemed more and more immature and less fun.  They may have been having fun but nobody else was laughing.  So after watching the teams fix windmills and watching the taller of the goat farmers hit tennis balls, it seemed the twins had caught up, but to everybody's surprise, the goat farmers hit the mat next to last which isn't bad for a team who had previously been almost 12 hours behind at one point.  So did the twins go home?  Of course not.  Tis the time for a non-elimination leg.  Oh ok.   So then the teams went to France and the funniest thing was, the goat farmers showed their huge advantage by knowing the language.  All of sudden, they were everybody's friend.  Now that is like high school.  I have to say, France was boring.  The teams plowed fields, fed dogs and searched for cultivated mushrooms.  Isn't that what everybody wants to do when they go to France?  The twins had navigation problems and kept showing up last to everything but the speed bump didn't help either.  I think they were hoping their friends would wait for them but they didn't.  Really?  That's why you don't waste time making friends or enemies during the race.  It's a freakin' race not a fight cancer walk-athon.  Yeesh.  The show took the time to showcase it's sponsor and really made the episode all about that car w/ it's cool features.  Whatever.  The great thing was the Chippendales landed on the finish mat first and won a car each.  That was so fun to see.  The twins found the race is kind of hard when you have to navigate yourself and landed on the mat last and were sent home.  Everybody can shut up about cab drivers not knowing where they're going.   I'm saving the finale for the next blog.  All I can say is, we didn't have to listen to those bratty twins anymore.

Survivor was down to 6.  Abi Maria annoyed everybody w/ ill manners and laziness.  She's alone now and tries to connive and sweet talk at the same time.  The problem is, she really sucks at it and the men aren't that dumb this season.  So they had their usual auction.  Surprisingly, everybody but Abi spent all of their $500 on food.  She held out for the advantage scroll.  Now that people can't pool their money, the person who saves their's can snap up that last item if everybody else is stupid.  Abi was kind of smart by telling people it also had a clue to another HII.  It didn't.  I would think people would've suspected something when she couldn't show it.  In the immunity challenge, it was a 3 part event and the advantage Abi got was to only have to do the last phase.  It really was an advantage because by the time they got to the last phase, everybody else was tired and depleted.  Each phase started w/ a trivia question but they only showed 1 round of that.  If they got the answer wrong, they had weight added to them which made it harder to do the physical part of the phase.  Because of the footage deletion, Probst had to do a lot of explaining.  In the end, Abi showed that if she really wants to, she can actually win a challenge.  The question is, did the other Survivors realize she hadn't been trying before?  By that time I was really sick and tired of Abi telling everybody, in really bad English, how she has to look out for herself.  So of course the people had to choose another goat to be butchered.  It turned out to be Penner.  He finally realized his wait and see attitude gave him the quick ticket to Ponderosa.  I'll bet he was sorry he didn't jump on that alliance offering from Lisa.  An offer like that is like getting a sucky present at Christmas.  Even if you don't want it, you smile and act like you love it.  The next show had the family members reunions.  The luxury prize was no prize but Malcolm won it.  The family members got to stay overnight on the island.  Malcolm chose Lisa and Skupin to share the prize.  If I were Denise, I might smell a rat but she seems very secure about Malcolm's loyalty.  Ok, here's the thing.  Loyalty doesn't really matter if you're the only other person from the original tribe and if you're gone.  Man, people are naive this season.  The most fun thing to watch was the family members being told to give up their clothes before they left.  It went like this, "I'm taking your shirt."  Well ok!  The immunity challenge was quite physical and Malcolm pulled out the win.  Lisa's family member had concocted a plan to blindside Malcolm and you know the adage about the best laid plans.  You could see the "Oh crap" look on Lisa's face.  It's a good thing none of the other people told Malcolm about it.  Abi told the tribe she had found the HII and I kept wondering if they would fall for it.  It seemed they did. The white guy w/ the rodent face who's pretty much been a bump on a log the whole season (Carter) immediately got the spotlight. The alliance of 4 stuck together and rodent face was sent to Ponderosa after a lot of stupid talk from Abi and a weak, "Could you just keep me around?" from rodent face.  Yeah, go find your balls Carter.  I think you left them in the corner.  I thought for sure they'd split the vote to flush out Abi's idol.  I suspect Abi's the keep to the end Villain.  I wonder if she realizes she has a snowball's chance of winning.  She thinks she'll get respect for outplaying but that only applies if you weren't a coattail rider.  People should remember that evil skinny twig from Ari's season.


The Challenge: Battle of the Seasons was down to only 2 whole teams and 3 half teams.  They had a bump around challenge which was freakin' hilarious.  Unfortunately, after a brilliant showing by the girls, the boys of Brooklyn dq'd because they couldn't stay on their feet.  San Diego pulled out the powerteam win.  Las Vegas landed on the bottom.  The drama in the house consisted of people grousing that Jonnae hadn't been in the arena yet and the Las Vegas 2, telling each other how much they hated each other.  Yeesh.  Note to Marie.  Don't antagonize the girl on the powerteam, they may send you in the Arena.  Uh, oh...too late.  Team St. Thomas was sent to the arena and Marie then went on to tell how much she hated everyone and would forever.  Everybody sat back and said, "Whatever" and Jonnae just grinned after having been saved by her new boyfriend, San Diego Zack.  The arena teams had to do that puzzle and dunk thing.  Las Vegas pulled out the win and sent the last of the St. Thomas team home.  Bye!  You did a great job, Marie, of making people glad you're gone.

Top Chef is proving Seattle thinks their cuisine is all that but, it's really not.  First they had a challenge to make dishes from a restaurant menu but the twist was, the menu was from 1950.  Really?  I thought the judges wanted fine dining.  I found it hilarious that the winner made sides for the courses.  Har har.  I guess giant potatoes and sherbet were fine dining in the 1950's.  Yeah, there wasn't any jello or chicken ala king.  It was fun to see Naomi Pomeroy judging the quickfire which had the chefs breakdown huge beef carcasses and make beef dishes.  Zzzz...  The Japanese girl chef was sent home for an underdone potato dish.  She did have 4 hours but once again, it was a case of her helping everybody else and not doing her own dish well.  Here's a clue people.  The judges don't care who's the hardest working and most helpful person.  It's a competition and you have to compete for yourself.  I didn't feel sorry for her at all.  The next quickfire had the chefts trying to put breakfast on a stick at a kind of farmer's market setting.  They were able to buy small appliances.  I was wondering why nobody bought a deep fat fryer because anything battered and deep fried can be put on a stick.  Instead, they did crazy stuff like trying to put crepes, breakfast tacos and other fancy stuff on the sticks.  Hello, I smell a whole lotta pretentious.  I think the winners made breakfast sandwich on a stick.  For the challenge, the chefs got dumb unique food items to make their dishes w/ like:  candied salmon, cheese curds, rose petal jelly, spicy pickles.  Really?  I thought the judges wanted fine dining.  Chefs hate pre-made food to cook w/ and even quirky fancy isn't liked.  It wasn't a surprise that the judges didn't really like any of the dishes but to add insult to injury, Colicchio told the chefs that not only would nobody win, but 2 people would go home.  Oy!  It's not like the chefs have been getting fancy prizes for the wins anyway.  In the end, fat ego white giant and his meek cooking partner went home for their burger.  They had thought that if they made a great burger, the pickle (their ingredient) would shine.  Unfortunately, they didn't make a good burger.  In fact, the judges hated it.  Next time, if you're going to use a crumpet for the bun, toast it first.  Yeesh.

Redneck Island had a teabag game for food items and it was hilarious to watch.  I remember playing something like that at camp.  The people were dressed in huge foam teabags and soaked themselves.  Then they squeezed themselves out as much as they could to fill jugs.  The methods of squeezing was the funniest thing to see but I loved that everybody just went for it.  Each jug represented part of a picnic and the rednecks earned themselves a good one except no booze.  Awww...  it was the last jug and they just couldn't get her done.  The big challenge had the teams trying to hold up 1 member hoisted in the air by holding on to the rope.  At time intervals, a team member was taken away.  Unfortunately for one team, they sent home their dumb strong guy.  Ooh, that was too bad.  One girl literally fainted in the harness and it was tricky getting her to shore since she had been suspended over water.  One team won and I can't remember who but the weird thing was, the person sent home was another guy.  I'm thinking the women who are left are playing pretty smart.

The Next Iron Chef: Redemption had the auction challenge.  It went just like last year even the very end outcome.  If you forgot, they brought out food items.  This time the items were huge and the factor was that breaking the food item down had to be considered in the time.  The chefs auctioned time but the increments went down.  Finally, each chef had to make their dishes and the winner from the last week taste tested, critiqued and then wrote down a name to go automatically into the elimination round.  Last year, Anne Burrell met her demise when she wrote down Zakarian, then had the worst dish, had to cook against him and then was eliminated.  This time Faulkner wrote down Appleman and the whole scenarion happened again.  Poor Chef Faulkner; she was devastated to be caught in her own net.  It was a weird deja vu moment.  Lesson for this week?  Go easy on the saffron and not just because it's expensive.

Well, that seems to be it for this week.  The next blog will have a couple of finales.  How exciting!  Until then, stay tuned!