Off The Beaten Path

Man, how time flies.  Sorry for not writing a post for so long.  Because I've skipped a few weeks, I'm going to kind of summarize the shows to the present.  They've come up w/ some new fun shows and revamped old ones.   So let's get to it.

I finally saw the final shows of Redneck Island.  All I have to say is, those Redneck men were smarter than the average bear.  I thought for sure their time was up when it was down to 2 men and 4 women.  Unfortunately, the women worked against themselves w/ their cattiness and grudges.  The men jumped on the opportunities and managed to oust all but 2 women.  Then they had a challenge where they answered trivia questions and w/ each correct answer, got to shoot a plate belonging to another player.  Each player had 5 plates and when all th plates of 1 person were shot, that person was sent home.  I loved it.  Talk about being on the spot.  It gave the people the opportunity to save themselves by being smarter.  Once again, the men played smart by just letting the women go at each other but the last shot was dealt by Justin and he really did show his hand.  That night, the ousted Rednecks returned for a potluck and Kelly was not over her ousting.  Oh boy!  It really didn't matter.  She was still out of the game.  The only thing she did was make the atmosphere awkward.  The final challenge was a huge obstacle course and Wade won by being more fit and stronger.  Way to go dude!  I liked that it wasn't about a final vote.  He totally earned his win.

Face Off is starting a new season and I have to say, it's even cooler than previous seasons.  Micheal Westmore, the god of character makeup, is taking the mentor role and will be on every episode.  He is so cool and it's like having Yoda on the show because his criticisms are wise but not harsh and he gives pointers on how to make the makeup better instead of just telling the artists they need to make the makeup look better.  It's also cool to see the warmth between Mackenzie and her Dad.  The talent on the show gets better every season.   There seem to be more older artists.  There are also a couple of people who seem to be wearing character makeup already.  One guy looks like Wolverine and another guy looks like a goth Comic Con guy.  As always, the challenges do come down to time management and luck.  There seems to be one guy who's the one to beat cuz he's won all the challenges so far.  They've done makeups for Kings of different fantasylands, and Queens w/ different crowns.  It's all so cool and as usual, I can't judge the good stuff from the bad cuz all the looks look awesome.  A couple of the models do a good job of selling the looks and others just stand there.  I think it would be fair to let the artists choose the models every week because those models who really work the look are a huge advantage.  So far, the black guy and the guy who looks like Wolverine have gotten the boot.

Cake Boss: The Next Great Baker was down to 3 guys and 3 girls, last I looked.  There are so many shows on Mondays that I often have to see the show in it's reruns so I'm usually a week behind.  I'm surprised that the contestants are actually better cake decorators than Buddy.  He's always been judged pretty harshly on Food Network cake challenges for uneven piping work, sloppy fondant work,  and unoriginality.  The weird thing is, he's done a few piping demonstrations and you can still see he's not very precise and quite sloppy.  Yet, he brags about how great he is.  Uh huh.  Some of the mini challenges have been quite funny w/ the bakers piping cakes in the freezer or trying to copy party cakes and having them trashed for 1 little mistake.  One challenge had the guys vs. the girls.  The women had to make a cake for a sweet sixteen party and the tall model girl thought a monster would be cute.  Huh?  I think she just wanted to sit down and just mold a character while the other 2 women covered and decorated the whole cake.  It didn't go over well w/ Buddy at all.  This season has a lot of incidences of the person w/ immunity trying to deliberately sink the ship.  That's really not fair.  Oh well.

The crying fatties are back and so is Jillian.  Welcome back to The Biggest Loser in the original format w/ a bit of a twist in the voting.  Finally, the producers have gotten smart and seen the error of their ways.  They started out w/ 2 teams of five and of course have been whittled down week after week.  Poor Jillian, her team has been decimated.  People comment on how she yells and berates her fatties but the contestants they're cranking out don't seem to be as aggressive as the ones in the first few seasons.  I'm so glad they've done away w/ literal teams of 2 w/ either family members or friends.  This season, it's every man or woman for themself and that's the way it should be.  There's no self sabotage, no falling on the sword and none of those people who just hang back and let everybody else fight and do the work.  It was getting to be a joke how the winners of the show were still fat at the end.  Also, it was kind of turning America's opinion of people causing disrespect of fatties, not just on the show but in society too.  This season, the fatties are seen as sincere.  The theme of this season is childhood obesity and it's a nice break to see the kids in their real lives.  It's kind of fake of other kids to be so nice to the show's kids because they're celebs now.   The voting is different too.  Immediately after the weigh ins, they are, one by one, made to vote in a booth.  There's no discussion w/ the other contestants.  No boo hoo, "I need this." or "Save him and send me home."  speeches.  No last minute conniving.  It's kept the contestants more honest and the lowest producing contestants have been sent home.  That's as it should be.  So far, the red team is down to 3 people, the blue team is still at it's original 5 and the white team has 1 lone member.  I also notice there's a lot less product schilling.  Thank you producers, for a much better show.


The Joe Schmoe Show is also back.  This season the fake show is Bounty Hunter and it's hilarious.  The Joe thinks he's competing for a Bounty Hunter job and a prize.  How funny is it that the Joe's name is Chase?  As usual, they've got the usual variety of characters:  slutty flirty girl, stupid innocent girl, dumb meathead guy, the buddy, the nasty hateful guy and the gay guy.  This season, they threw in some fun characters starting w/ Lorenzo Lamas who was totally hilarious but was sprung after the first episode.  OMG, I couldn't believe he was handing out skimpy men's underwear LOL!  He played the stereotype of actors that was making the other actors cringe; the arrogant doofus.  They've also added a deaf girl w/ her signing translator.  It's hilarious but the actress keeps making character breaks and almost gives up the ruse.  Ralph Garman is hosting again and even funnier than ever playing a former bounty hunter w/ his slutty wife who he has no respect for.  He brags and struts like a rooster and I'm LOL the whole time he's onscreen.  The Joe is the most innocent good guy they could find who apparently doesn't watch TV much but has a lot of heart.  Instead of looking like a dumb dupe, he seems more like that innocent altar boy who just doesn't see duplicitousness in anybody.  He evokes a lot of awww.... moments.  They have the funniest and most absurd eviction ceremony you've ever seen and a huge double entendre and the Joe still buys it.  OMG, I can't wait for the reveal at the end of this season.  I wish they'd show more of the fake voting cuz some of the stuff the actors write on their ballots is so hilarious.  One fun fact;  the buddy guy is Jim Belushi's son.  Cool!

TBS has a fun show called King of the Nerds.  Yep, being a nerd has really become cool thanks to The Big Bang Theory and all the technical shows like Numbers, CSI, etc.  They brought together nerds of all kinds from scientists to gamers to Comic pros and split them into 2 teams.  The show is hosted by 2 Revenge of the Nerds actors who are totally playing their characters.  They chose their teams by having each subsequent chosen member choosing the next person.  Alana was the last person standing and rightly so.  She's weird, full of unsubstantiated arrogance and a face only a mother could love.  It got kind of funny when she was told to declare the weakest team and then was assigned to them ha ha ha.   Not only did the blue team have disappointed faces but so did she.  The first elimination challenge was life size chess.  The cutest guy on the blue team put himself up for the challenge and all the rest of his team was like, "Go for it dude."  Alana bragged she was in the chess club.  Whatever.  He chose her as his consultant.  The orange team put up their ugliest nerd.  In the end, the cute guy lost and was sent home.  What did Alana do on her chess team?  Carry the towels?  Then the real shows started and the first challenge of the show is always some nerdy thing like coming up w/ fantasy characters.  OMG, it's too funny and awkward.  Then the elimination challenge is only between 2 people and usually something that takes brains and a little luck.  Alana was able to send the orange ugly guy home just w/ huge luck.  I totally enjoy this show because I get the nerdy jokes, understand how they think and am totally intrigued by their weirdness.  If they're getting rid of the homely people, Alana should be next.

Top Chef continues to be very uninteresting w/ it's stupid Seattle setting.  The chefs had their restaurant wars.  The way it turned out, it was men vs. women w/ the Asians as executive chefs.  Poor Kristen got stuck w/ Josie and par for the course, Josie was no help.  The men had only 3 on their team and Stefan was wearing a lot of hats.  The men made the mistake of giving free wine and ran into the problem of moochers not wanting to leave.  I loved Stefan yelling, "I don't give a f___!  Get them out of here!"  By the time the judges showed up, he was over the whole thing and kind of had an apathetic attitude to everything.  I kind of loved it.  Hee hee hee  I could just see it on Stefan's face:  VIP, whatever.  It took a little air out of the judges' balloons and I was LMAO!  Meanwhile, on Kristen's team, she declared herself to be in control of every dish. At judging, she stuck to it and refused to expose Josie as the dumb dork she is.  Sometimes it's all about luck and Kristen's ran out.  She lost the restaurant war and was also sent home.  Wow!  Unbelievable.  Her main flaw was, she didn't really run her chefs like she should've.  Really?  She told Josie to start roasting the bones the night before and Josie put her off.  At that point, she should've said, "Get it done right now!"  But she let her chefs do their thing and it was totally her downfall.  Then again, if chef means chief, she didn't act like a chief.  She really needed to kick some ass.  Poor Stefan lost his wifey.  I don't know why, but Stefan is really winning me over this season.  He's that cool Senior guy who you just want have around.

Project Runway is back and this season all the challenges are going to be in teams.  OMG!  Most designers hate team challenges.  Yes the designers are in 2 teams but each designer had to do their own look.  Ohhh....   Ok. That's better.  If they're going to stick to that format, they can't have 1 person being the workhorse and 1 person doing nothing but just being bossy.  The teams share the money for the fabric and notions, confer about designs, help each other, critique each other and pay for not helping their fellow designer because if your team loses, no matter how great your look is, you can't be the winner.  I kind of love it.  Zack Posen has replaced Mr. orange glow Kors.  Nina's rat face is still in the judging chair and Heidi is more critical than ever.  The show is showing Swatch at Mood and I love that.  The designers are interesting.  I hear they're going to have to do a men's wear challenge.  Good!  Men's wear is harder than it looks and you can't make a bunch of holes in your design and call it fashion.  I think this season is going to be better than we thought.

After years of competiton reality shows, producers have really honed the craft.  They've gone back to showing the work instead of the drama.  It's great because unlike voyeuristic shows, these contestants should be respected for their work and competitive spirit.  I still hate dating reality because it's not really reality.  Those contestants are so far from real.

So that's it.  Until next time TV fans:  stay tuned.