Wrapping Up Before Christmas

Merry Christmas fellow competition reality show watchers.  I promised to do some finales and they were quite exciting.  So let's get to it.

The Next Iron Chef: Redemption was one of the most ironic shows ever.  It seemed everytime someone won the week before and then got the advantage the next week, they got the boot.  The only chef who seemed to be immune to that was Amanda Freitag.  The chefs were in Las Vegas and they had to make fusion dishes w/ things like peppermint candy and fish, fruit and fish, gorgonzola and candy and well...you get the idea.  The best part was seeing the grimaces on the faces of the chefs as each pairing was revealed.  Marcelle had won the week before so he got to mete out the pairings to the chefs.  Well, long story short, Chef Meta didn't really do anything w/ his skittles except reshape them and Appleman must have a weird palate cuz he keeps landing on the bottom too.  They had to cook big fat shrimp dishes on a teppan.  Hilarious!  I was fascinated to watch Meta using his bare hands instead of utensils to move his food around on that hot grill.  Wow!  Anyway, Appleman made a sauce inside the shrimp head and the judges loved it. Ick.  Bye Chef Meta.  Drink an energy drink and maybe you won't bore us to death.  So they were down to 4 and the chefs were challenged to do a Vegas buffet but work in 2 teams of 2.  Marcelle and Guarnacelli were on one team and Appleman was chosen by Freitag to be on her team.  I think she was thinking that if they lost, she could easily beat the pants off of Appleman. What a smart lady.  So blah blah blah, Vigneron and Guarnacelli land on the bottom.  It was no surprise that Guarnacelli beat Marcelle in the Chairman's challenge.  Bye Marcelle. No soup for you!  Ok, so finally the finale.  I couldn't believe how much they crammed into 1 hour.  First the 3 chefs each had to make a dish using one of the judges favorite foods.  Whatever!  Eh, so Appleman came in last and he was sent home right off.  Then Guarnecelli and Freitag went to Kitchen Stadium for the last battle and it was kind of just like the real Iron Chef show except they had a lot of different ingredients to choose from cuz they represented the 3 main iron chefs:  Flay, Morimoto and Symon.  Well!  If I were the newer Iron Chefs, I would've been very peeved to be so obviously downgraded.  Well, so anyway, after cooking and tasting of 3 dishes from each Chef Guarnacelli was declared the winner.  Ok.  So who's going to be the soux chef for Zakarian?  Oh well, at least I won't have to see Arpaia's big teeth anymore.

Survivor had it's last episodes too.  We saw the final 5 return to the beach where stupid Abi Maria profusely thanked everybody for keeping her around.  Hmmm...I wonder if she realized she kind of gave away the fact that she didn't have an hidden immunity idol after all.  So she proved she's not only a dumb liar, but really just dumb.  Everybody picked up on it.  The luxury challenge had the survivors balancing and putting puzzles together.  At one point, Malcolm was really behind everybody and he still pulled out the win. He chose Skupie and Lisa to join him and they ate and swam w/ huge whale sharks.  I wonder if they waited a half an hour before swimming after they ate.  Back at the beach, Abi Maria was trying to buddy up to Denise who she's been really rude to all the time.  Also, she was trying to intimate she has her HII.  Uh huh...no fooling these people twice you twit.  You can tell Denise is a mental therapist cuz she is really good at looking like she's listening when you know she can't stand Abi.  We can't stand Abi!  For immunity, the survivors had to do that get the balls on the paddle into their little spots.  Malcolm wins again!  Wow, the guy is on a roll.  Actually, we just didn't want Abi to win.  This time, the survivors were smart and finally gave Abi the boot but not before Jeff let her blather on way too long.  I loved the shot of Skupin dancing back to the beach.  Too funny!!!  The next day, everyone revelled in their Abi free lives.  So no more luxury challenges.  It was time to get down to brass tacks.  They had that stupid fallen comrades thing that's kind of like a suppository; just a necessary thing to get the crap over with.  It was interesting to note Denise knew every single person.  So they get to their final immunity challenge and it's a hold skinny cylindrical sticks together as long as you can.  The weird thing is, Malcolm had won an advantage and it was that he'd get a restart if he messed up.  It was very surprising to see Malcolm use it up and be eliminated first.  Skupin pulled out the win, but kudos to Lisa for coming in 2nd.  So it came down to 2 members of the blue tribe and 2 members of the yellow tribe.  Denise asked Malcolm to stick to loyalty and even the vote and she'd fight it out but Malcolm ho and hummed. Ding!  Denise picked up on the fact that she might be the odd man out so she went to Lisa and Skupin and convinced them that they wouldn't win against Malcolm cuz he's just the coolest guy on the beach.  Yeah...  At tribal, the survivors sounded the most intelligent I'd heard all season.  Surprisingly enough, Malcolm got the boot and he was not happy.  So finale time.  The trio had their fancy breakfast, burned camp and then went to meet Jeff and the jury.  Oh blah blah blah.  Abi and Penner turned out to have the biggest chips on their shoulders but Abi made no sense and needs to work on her English.  Penner revealed to all the youngsters that Lisa was a childstar.  Everybody else was pretty forgettable.  I wish they'd quit asking, "Why do you think you should win?"  Yo, cuz they want the million dollars.  Anyway, in the end Denise came out the winner.  Wow!  I'm glad for her.  She had a tough game, gave every challenge her all and really did a good job of trying to be diplomatic.  I have to say, the reunion show was very unsatisfying w/ a lot of people ignored.

The Challenge:  Battle of the Seasons also had it's finale.  The final teams were San Diego, Brooklyn and little Las Vegas.  They went to Namibia and had to trek through the desert w/ periodic stops to do a puzzle.  Sarah was the hero of her team but you're only as good as your weakest person as other teams from other season have found out.  Devyn proved to be the bag of rocks on her team.  Meanwhile, Las Vegas couldn't get along.  Sam was prodded verbally by her team.  In the end, the guys of San Diego shoved Sam up the last hill and they won.  Awww...I wanted Brooklyn to win and they came in 3rd.  Well Heck! 

Cake Boss:  The Next Great Baker has a really nice and professional bunch.  One lady looks just like Minerva from last season.  I'm sure they put her on the show just to watch Buddy crap his pants.  Everybody hated Minerva.  One guy is totally hot and then there's the usual assortment of small business owners, pity party single mothers, and fresh out of culinary school newbies.  One guy already bowed out of the competition due to illness.  The challenges are exactly the same as other seasons but the cakes are looking cool.  We all watch just to see the work being done.  It's like magic and I wish the show would cut Buddy's talking and show more of the work.  I do like that first there's a taste challenge and then an artistic one.  You never really see anybody eat the cakes from the art challenge.  One skinny brunette lady seems to be the emerging star talent of the show.  I do have to say, they're turning out cakes that look better than Buddy's.

Top Chef keeps proving Seattle cuisine is the equivalent of Jersey Couture.  Both are oxymorons w/ emphasis on the moron.  I'm sorely disappointed w/ this season.  The judges ask for fine dining but yet pick simple dishes.  The chefs can't seem to do the basic cooking right and the challenges are really quite boring.  The only fun thing on the show is Stefan.  Once again, he's flirting and chasing the lesbian.  His arrogance is just hot air and peacock posing.  It totally cracks me up.  One week Brooke won both challenges and the next Kristen won both.  None of it was very interesting.  Maybe the show has become old because now all the food seems to start looking alike.  Nobody does anything cool like the Voltaggios or Richard Blaise.  Nobody cares who gets kicked off.  Zzzzz...

Project Runway Allstars had the innovation challenge.  The materials all came from a Christmas store.  Cooool.  They were warned not to make their looks look like Christmas though.  I couldn't believe the cool looks that the designers made.  Poor Josh literally made his outfit out of ribbon and trim.  Eeek!  It was cool and I liked his hotpants.  Casanova couldn't pull it together and wasted so much time and material that he literally slapdashed a look out of scraps from other designers.  The judges noticed and he got the boot.  Awww...poor Casanova. After being robbed so many times he finally hit the wall.  The next show had the designers make a look inspired by the 1920's.  Hmmm...I was expecting some sack dresses.  The designers embraced the beads and fringe of the flappers and that was about it.  Uli seems to be on a roll.  Anthony Ryan made his usual sheath cuz it's working for him.  This time Laura Kathleen's palazzo pants look didn't work for the judges and she was given the boot.  Yeah...not too many of those big pants were seen in the 1920's.  Ivy's been getting away w/ some fugly designs.  Whatever.

Redneck Island showed the rednecks being homesick and the women getting sick and tired of going natural.  I loved the chicken wire rollers they made.  I think my Grandma had some curlers that looked like that.  The island was down to 4 guys and 5 women.  They were able to win some foods by shooting arrows on a board and it was hilarious cuz the only thing that was hit was lettuce, eggs and lobster.  Top Chef contestants could really go gourmet w/ those items but not these rednecks and I was LOL.  For the final challenge, the rednecks had to do a trivia challenge but the twist was, the loser would immediately go home and there would still be a reckoning (vote out).  I wish they'd do this on other shows cuz it's essentially double elimination but one person really deserves the boot.  The winner got immunity cuz there aren't any teams anymore.  One of the guys got immunity.  The blonde lady proved she was dumber than a box of rocks and was eliminated.  ATV does not stand for American TV.  The final vote looked like it might be totally split 4 guys against 4 gals but everyone was shocked when one of the guys was voted out.  Whoa!  Interesting.  That was better than Survivor.

Ok, well that's about it.  The Christmas movie season is upon us and the running theme is romance.  Ugh.  I like the Groundhog Day, It's a Wonderful Life and Christmas Carol themed ones.  Hey, that's everything else.   Oh well.  Maybe next year.  Merry Christmas everybody and Happy New year. Until next time, stay tuned.