Playing Catch Up With The Vampire Diaries

Last week I was given the assignment of reviewing The CW’s latest hit, The Vampire Diaries, and needless to say I was a bit spooked. Hit is always a relative term when dealing with anything on The CW, but the show has performed well so far by network standards and seems to gathering a decent following so I sat down in front of my television this Thursday night with an open mind ready to be either wowed or bored to tears. The result was actually somewhere in the middle.

The series has already seen six episodes air since its debut last month but luckily for me this week was a rerun of episode number two titled, “The Night of the Comet.” The relationships and character ties are already so complex in this second hour that I didn’t even realize it was only the second episode until I did some investigating afterwards. That being said – if you intend to jump headfirst into this show as I have, grab some Wikipedia CliffsNotes first because the writers and producers of this series clearly have no time to play catch up for newcomers.

The plot of the series centers around two brothers, Damon and Stefan (Ian Somerhalder and Paul Wesley, respectively), who also happen to be vampires. Damon is a full-fledged badass who embraces his blood-sucking self to the fullest and seeks to prey on the poor residents of Mystic Falls with a cocky glee and twinkle in his eye. Stefan, on the other hand, is more interested in getting in touch with his human side and playing nice. This is especially true now that he has found a romantic interest in the mortal Elena (Nina Dobrev). Episode #2 finds them trying to define a potential relationship despite Stefan’s mysterious behavior and Elena’s first encounter with Damon who she didn’t even know existed. It seems only natural that a love triangle will develop in the coming episodes although at this time I can’t imagine what would draw her to the abrasive Damon.

This particular episode had a lot going on as the series attempts to establish characters and storylines for the whole season. There are numerous family issues with multiple characters, a plotline following a vampire victim who appears to be on her way to becoming one herself, and Elena’s younger brother is getting involved with drugs after the death of their parents. This may all end up paying off as the show progresses but in future episodes I hope to see more complete stories in an episode rather than the soap operatic setting-up that clearly dominated this hour.

In the end, this episode may have been bogged down in exposition but the series itself shows potential. With some luck it just may prove to be something more than the usual CW series starring people in their late twenties and early thirties as high school students, but if not at least they’re all pretty.

Season 1, Episode 2: The Night of the Comet (originally aired September 17, 2009)

For more on The Vampire Diaries, click here.

Thursdays at 8/7c on The CW

Photographs courtesy of The CW and Bob Mahoney

Top Chef: Ready, Set, Restaurant Wars!

This week’s Top Chef was super sized as the much awaited “Restaurant Wars” episode finally happened. It had all the elements that made for good reality television: cursing, arguing, winning, and failing! Robin drops an f-bomb, the Voltaggio brothers verbally spar, and we see Jen go through an epic fail.

Starting off was the quickfire challenge, which I found the most interesting part of the episode. The chefs all pulled knives with Jen getting first choice and Michael getting second. First and second to what you may ask? They get to pick teammates for this crazy challenge. It ends up being Jen, Kevin, Mike Isabella, and Laurine on one team with Michael, Bryan, Eli, and Robin on the other. Robin was the last to be chosen only confirming of course that most of the other contestants don’t like her and don’t think that she should still be on the show.

The way this quickfire is set up is that each team will prepare one dish but the catch is that they can only have one person on the floor at a time while the rest stay to the side blindfolded. They also can’t talk to each other. After one person finishes they leave and the next person has to make sense of what they were trying to do and continue the job.

Jen (blue team) and Eli (red team) were first up with only 10 minutes to pick their ingredients and prep for their next team member with a total of forty minutes to do the entire dish. Laurine and Robin, Bryan and Mike Isabella, and lastly Kevin and Michael followed them.

This episode’s guest judge was Rick Moonan (who also competed on Top Chef Masters) known for his sustainable seafood practices. This basically means that he only uses seafood coming from fisheries practicing prudent fishing methods.

Rick decides that the blue team wins with their sablefish with sautéed mushrooms, shiitake broth, and radish salad. The red team created a pan roasted NY strip with whipped miso avocado puree. The winning team receives a chip from the M resort for ten thousand dollars to be split amongst themselves. But they have the option of letting it ride and win ten thousand dollars each if they win tonight’s elimination challenge. So Jen and the rest of team blue agree to go for it, feeling confident that they will win restaurant wars.

The two teams end up cooking at Rick’s RM Seafood at the Mandalay Bay hotel that has two kitchens; one fine dining and the other more casual. Team blue picks up the fine dining upstairs with team red taking the downstairs.

We first see how team red aka team Revolt does and they actually do quite well! Eli is at the front of the room seating people and seeing to their needs while Michael, Robin, and Bryan are in the back cooking. Eli’s dish is the smoked arctic char with beet sauce and horseradish cream. Michael’s is chicken and calamari ‘pasta’ and cod with mussel billi-bi. Bryan had the duo of beef, braised short ribs and chocolate ganache with spearmint ice cream and chocolate tuiles. Robin’s dish was the pear pithivier.

Overall team red had good service and good food. The customers and the judges were both happy.

Team blue aka Team Mission on the other hand pretty much failed at this challenge. Firstly their service was bad from the food taking a very long time to the bad quality of their product. Laurine as a host was also not doing well, showing the signs of stress that were coming from the kitchen. This was really blatantly obvious when the judges had to keep calling her back to ask about the dishes.

If you’re curious about what they did put out here’s a quick rundown:

Jennifer: trout with hazelnut butter and bouillabaisse with mussels

Kevin: pork three ways

Laurine: lamb with carrot jam

Mike Isabella: Asparagus and six minute egg and arctic char tartar

Team blue opted not to do a dessert on the basis that the team who did a dessert always lost restaurant wars. It turns out though this time the team with a dessert won with not just one but two sweet dishes!

In the end Laurine was kicked off.

Team red won with Michael as the winner. I had mixed feelings about this because while the judges loved his dishes the most, he was also incredibly overbearing in the kitchen. I’m sure he was doing what he thought was best to get the job done, but he constantly micromanaged his team which was really annoying. I guess the judges were basing this win at least just on the food itself, versus seeing how well he worked with everyone else as well. Michael gets a bonus ten thousand chip as the winner that he elects to split with his team.

Overall, this was a decent episode. The quickfire was by far the most interesting part of the show and Laurine getting cut was not unexpected. What was surprising was Jen’s failure in her trout dish after being such a strong competitor in the past. I guess we’ll find out if she redeems herself and pulls through the next round.

For another take on this episode, check out Restaurant Wars or … Why I Never Liked Family Feud by Jaimie Campos.

Season 6, Episode 9: Restaurant Wars (originally aired October 21, 2009)

For more on Top Chef, click here.

Wednesdays at 10/9C, Bravo

Photographs courtesy of  NBC Universal and Trae Patton

Glee: The Slushie Massacres

This week’s Glee-pisode was quite satisfying—between the non-stop musical interludes, surfacing secret crushes, and attempts to fight back against high school status quos, it’d be hard to complain. I did however finish the show off with an odd craving for a slushie…

The opening scene is a testament to a “new order,” as Finn is greeted by the splash of a slushie in his face among the hallways he once ruled. The news of Quinn’s pregnancy has spread like the Swine Flu, significantly lowering the couple’s coolness-factor, and prompting the Football team to terrorize Finn.

Finally updated on the wedding arrangements, we learn that while Emma wants to conceal all plans, essentially eloping to Hawaii, Ken is insisting on having a first dance with his germophobic fiancée. The pair asks Will to create a mash-up of the two songs tailor made to their personalities: for Emma, “I Could Have Danced All Night,” from My Fair Lady, and for Ken, “The Thong Song.” Will is obliged to help, and also offers to gift them with dance lessons because Ken’s toenails have all been removed and it will hurt like hell if Emma steps on them.

Meanwhile, as Q wipes the grape juice out of Finn’s eyes, the Gleeks worry that none of them are safe. Will tries to enhance the energy up by saying that sometimes two opposites make the best match—like chocolate and bacon, Glee and football. He challenges the kids to find a song to mash with “Bust a Move,” and then he literally busts one himself: what can I say, the man can dance!

Finn and Quinn appear in Emma’s office, asking her for advice on how to regain their mojo. Yet her advice-giving is interrupted by a goofy Will in shades, making faces at her window.

“Sunglasses are so sexy,” she blurts out.

The next scene features Emma in her wedding gown—a truly atrocious compilation of fabric and bows, with a train that could clothe a small family. She wore the dress to her lesson with Will so that Ken could learn not to trip over the massive quantity of polyester trailing behind her. Will smiles and flips on some Sisqo, performing another shining exhibition of his skills. Nonetheless, he trips over the dress just in time for Ken to see them land and linger on top of one another.

Tensions show their face on the football field as Finn’s teammates insult his manhood. Ken cuts in, saying that, “Football is war.” Clearly channeling his anger at Will, he mandates a new practice on Thursdays at 3:30pm—conveniently the same time that Glee meets.

Next, we find out that Puck has been putting the moves on…Rachel?? As she sings “What a Girl Wants,” in the mirror, the scene pans out to show that Puck is playing guitar on her bed. The two engage in a little makeout session, as a voice over from Puck explains his need to find a “nice, Jewish girl.” Rachel stops him just as they are getting hot and heavy, saying she couldn’t give herself to someone who wasn’t brave enough to perform a solo.

“Are you questioning my badassness? Have you seen my guns?” asks a rejected Puck. The real reason, as we know, is that she is actually picturing Finn.

In the Glee room, Puck sings a good-hearted version of “Sweet Caroline” by Neil Diamond (his favorite Jew) in order to woo Rachel. Finn eyes Rachel who is eyeing Puck who is also getting eyed by Quinn. Basically, there’s a lot of eyeing going on.

In other news, Sue Sylvester has fallen in love! And her new beau, Rod, wants to take her to a Sickle Cell Anemia swing dancing contest. Will—who is apparently getting more than he bargained this episode—teaches Sue to swing dance and is pleasantly surprised by her changed attitude.

Sue spills the beans that Ken is forcing his athletes to chose between Glee and the sport. Will confronts him, and Ken brings up the obvious chemistry between Will and his fiancée. Although Will promises to back off, Ken is adamant in letting the kids choose whose extracurricular is the true second place.

Puck is the next slushie victim, walking hand-in-hand with Rachel. As she cleans out his hair in the boys’ bathroom (Huh??), he admits that he couldn’t handle this kind of teasing and will probably choose the team over the club, because “The worst part is not that it drips into your underpants… it’s the humiliation.”

Will meets Emma to help pick out a new wedding dress that won’t cause the groom to trip and fall on his face. After Emma emerges from the dressing room in a conservative gown, Will puts on an instrumental version of her mash-up selection, telling her she can sing along if she’d like. The scene is very elegant, with the two waltzing around the picturesque shop, customers putting their shopping on hold to smile at their adorable-ness. Finally, an example of the spontaneous song and dance that works!

As Thursday Glee practice rolls around, the club wonders which athletes will show. One by one, all but Finn arrive through the door. So this is what disappointment feels like.

Finn, aka Benedict Arnold, cruises through the hallway, slushie in hand. Who will be his victim? The gang is all wisely geared up in raincoats, as Finn makes his way to harmless Kurt, who grabs the cup from his hand and douses himself with the purple goo. He then demands the girls take him to the day spa—the girl’s bathroom-telling Finn that none of his teammate were that selfless.

Meanwhile, Sue’s newsroom romance is cut short when she finds Rod making out with another woman. Watch out audience! This can only mean trouble.

Rachel and Puck talk on the football bleachers, calling off their imaginary feelings for each other and realizing each other’s true lusts for Finn and Quinn.

On the field, Will gives Finn a pep talk, urging him to come back to Glee. Finn approaches Ken and tells him it’s “not cool” making them choose, and that it’s prohibiting his abilities to lead the team. Ken breaks down and moves the conflicting practice indefinitely.

Since Sue’s failed love story, she has returned to her old self. She tells Will she needs to see the Sectionals set list, and that if it’s late, she will sell him a kitten, let him fall in love with it, and then take it away and break his heart. She also kicks Q off the Cheerios squad.

Will gives Emma the bad news: it’s impossible to make a mash-up of “The Thong Song” and “I Could Have Danced All Night” (Damn—I really wanted to hear him pull that off).

“They don’t go together,” admits Emma.

“We both know that,” says Will.

Finn brings the whole club slushies to make up for his temporary, reckless abandonment. Will gets brain freeze, commenting that he can’t imagine what it’s like to get hit in the face with one. A light bulb goes off, and the Gleeks creep towards him, comically throwing the drinks. Clearly, this was just an attempt to even the score in light of Will’s slick dance moves throughout the episode. I’m petitioning to become his new best friend.

In conclusion, this episode rocked. And it wasn’t just because Terri wasn’t in it (thought it didn’t hurt!).

For another take on this episode, check out Return of the Sue by J.B. Perlow.

Season 1, Episode 8: Mash-Up  (originally aired October 21, 2009)

For more on Glee, click here.

Wednesdays at 9pm on Fox

Photographs courtesy of Fox and IMDbPro

Glee: Return of the Sue

A slow week on Glee, which shouldn’t surprise anyone after last week’s fireworks between Will and Sue.  But it gives us time to explore the softer side of Puck, Will’s conflicted feelings about Emma, and Finn showing once again he’s a good guy.

And so with the pour of a generic Big Gulp (a “Big Quench”), a student walks down the hallway, ready to aim. . . .at Finn! Finn has insperminated (New word alert! Call the OED) Quinn, and it’s payback time for the long-held grievance of one particular student and his pubes.  It seems Finn’s reign of popularity is over.

Coach Ken and Emma are telling Will about their proposed wedding, which to Emma’s chagrin requires them be in the same room together at the same time.  They aren’t inviting Will but they want his help in making a mash-up of “The Thong Song” and “I Could Have Danced All Night” so they can have a first dance as awkward husband and awkward wife.  They also want dancing lessons.

In rehearsal, the gang is debating the start of the Slushie Wars, while Will walks in and talks about his love of mash-ups.  He hands out a new song: “Bust A Move,” but none of the male leads want to sing it, so Will shows them how it’s done, including some crazy dance moves.  It’s awesome, at the very least because it distracts me from the awful lip syncing that’s still going on in post-production.

After the break, Finn and Quinn talk to Emma about their social fall.  They need advice on how to be cool and believe that Emma must have seen a lot of cool people over the years.  Quinn’s comparing her status to being a toxic asset, but Emma’s distracted by Will walking by in sunglasses.  She suggests sunglasses and Finn likes the idea because it would let him look at someone’s boobs without her knowing.

We cut to Emma wearing an over-the-top wedding dress, modeled after the one Princess Di wore at her wedding.  She’s going to her dance rehearsal with Will and wants to make sure she know how to dance in it.  And cue “The Thong Song” and dance moves that Emma’s never going to be able to do, and I’m sure Ken has even less of a chance of doing.  Anyway, Emma’s getting excited by Will’s moves and she trips on him, landing on top of him as they have yet another awkward face-to-face moment.  Ken, of course, sees the whole thing from a distance.

At football practice, we and Finn need to hear some gay cracks about Finn being on glee club.  Ken breaks up a fight with Finn and announces he’s adding another mandatory practice . . . that coincides with glee club practice.  Ken tells Finn (and Puck by proxy) that he needs to choose.  Puck, meanwhile, is practicing a song with Rachel.  Why is he there?  Well, his family ordered Chinese food during their traditional Simchat Torah screening of Schindler’s List, which always reminds Puck’s mother of her Jewish roots.  This year his mother thinks Puck’s like the Ralph Fiennes character or something because he’s not dating a Jewish girl.  This led to Puck having a dream about Rachel and thinking it’s a message from God (or should I say “G-d”) to get into Rachel’s pants.  You know, when he prays, it’s like the room almost becomes a synagogue.

The next day, the Big Quench is on patrol . . . no wait, it’s Puck who bought her a drink.  It led to more make-out sessions, only she’s pretending he’s Finn.  She says she can’t give herself to him until he sings a solo.  At rehearsal, Puck says he has an idea for a mash—a personal tribute to a Jewish musical icon: Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline,” which was about a very non-Jewish little Irish Catholic girl.  And so Puck sings his solo to Rachel while the gang does the “bah-bah-bah” part that we all love to sing in bars.

Before we realize Puck didn’t sing a mash-up, Finn and Quinn are wearing the darkest sunglasses ever while walking down the hall.  They run into his football teammates, who throw many grape sodas at them.  He needs to put the bros before “hi-hos” and show up to practice.

Sue’s finishing up her Corner against the anti-human-dog marriage referendum, when she gets asked out on a date by the very-scotch-soaked news anchor, Ron.  We cut to Sue and Will swing dancing (to “Sing, Sing, Sing”) and I have to think this is a dream sequence or the opening credits to Big Business.  No, it’s for real; Will’s been giving Sue lessons and he’s glad they’re no longer at each other’s throats.  She’s calmer now that she’s in love after a date of Battleship with Ron; he likes to swing and wants Sue to go to a dance-a-thon with her.  Sue drops the nugget about Ken adding another football rehearsal.

Will goes to Ken about the scheduling conflict.  Ken points out that he knows Emma is just settling for him when she really wants Will.  Will owns up that he’s never explicitly said anything to Emma but he’s also never sent her away.  Will’s sorry for it but Ken’s not canceling his practice–let the kids decide who’s the consolation prize.

Rachel and Puck are arm and arm through the halls talking about musical stuff (and we learn his real name is “Noah”).  And then Noah gets a flooded face full of soda.  He lets Rachel clean the grape goop out of his hair and realizes how bad he treated her before.  He lets her know that he’s choosing football over glee, even if he knows it means they can’t be together anymore.

Will, for whatever reason, is out wedding dress shopping with Emma, who’s in a new and much more beautiful dress.  Will’s clearly enamored and wants to practice whether she can dance in it.  Cue the music and Emma’s first song of the series: “I Could Have Danced All Night.” When they finish, you could cut the sexual tension with a knife, a knife through the hearts of Emma, Will, and Ken.  He has to get to practice and tells Emma about Ken’s stand-off, which could mean the end of glee club.  At rehearsal, the clock strikes 3:30 and none of the football players arrive . . . until all but Finn walk in.

The next day Finn’s walking the halls with a big quench and the glee kids are all in raincoats and ponchos.  Kurt knows Finn doesn’t want to throw a soda at him, so Kurt grabs the soda and throws it in his own face, telling Finn that none of his other football team friends would do that for him.  In other disappointments, Sue walks in to see Ron and to show off her new zoot suit.  She finds him making out with someone and she’s furious.

Puck and Rachel are watching the football team practice and she hopes he didn’t leave football for her because she doesn’t think it’s going to work out between them.  He claims he was going to break up with her because he can’t get to second base (at least, what I think is second base), and he knows she has a thing for Finn and she thinks he has a thing for Quinn.  He gives her the cold shoulder and walks off.  Zooming in to the field, we see Will tossing a football with Finn and trying to talk him back into glee club because it’s where Finn belongs.  Finn takes this speech and goes to Ken to say he can’t leave glee because he sees a future where you can play football and sing and dance in glee club.  What a strange dystopian world!  Anyway, he doesn’t want to have to choose between them.  Ken relents because he has laundry to do or something during that time.

Sue returns with a vengeance from Ron and reasserts her role working with Will.  After threatening the life of a kitten, she kicks Quinn off of the Cheerios.  Apparently unphased by it all, Will tells Emma that he can’t get her two wedding songs to work together.  This is all metaphorical, of course.  It would have been a nice ending but instead we get the glee club throwing their grape slushies at Will (because he’s never been slushed before or something).

For another take on this episode, check out The Slushie Massacres by Alyssa Martino.

Listen to The J Factor with J.B. and Jaimie here or on iTunes.

Season 1, Episode 8: Mash-Up  (originally aired October 21, 2009)

For more on Glee, click here.

Wednesdays at 9pm on Fox

Photographs courtesy of Fox and IMDbPro

America’s Next Top Model: Interview 101

Or…the One Where Tyra Laughs at Dyslexic People. Oh, I’m sure she wasn’t really laughing, but I maintain this episode was a cruel joke at Kentucky’s expense.

And at our expense. Because this week, we also have the much-hyped visit of Kim Kardashian as guest judge. Is it wrong to hate someone for no reason other than that they make appearances on my favorite shows? Because that’s how I feel about the Kardashians. It’s all fine if they want to do whatever it is they do on the E! network, but first Khloe shows up on CelebApprentice, then Kim shows up here…and why? To pretend to be good at something other than whatever it is they do? (Not that I thought Trump was right in his argument for sending Khloe home, but it would have happened eventually…)

But first! We begin with Rae’s interview, where she talks about how much she loves and misses her daughter. But, remember,  she’s here for the right reasons and wants to win. She’s gung ho about showing off her personality to the judges. It’s a nice little speech: therefore, Rae will go home. Rae’s chunk of interview time combined with last week’s deliberation about “model potential” all but lock her in as this week’s target.

Also in the editors’ spotlight is Erin, who continues the Nicole-hate with comments about how she’s more relatable to average girls than Nicole could be. If average girls are catty bitches who hate anyone who a) is different from them; and b) excels and receives more praise, then yes, Erin is more relatable.

…

Moving on. We learn that Kentucky suffers from severe dyslexia, a condition which caused other kids and teachers to call her stupid. It doesn’t help with that accent but I can’t imagine anyone disliking or having reason to make fun of this girl. We haven’t had anyone as genuinely likeable as Kentucky in a while.

But it’s at the Teach and Challenge that things really heat up. The girls meet Lara Spencer from the Insider and learn the very, very basics of interviewing celebrities. The Challenge portion consists of interviewing Jessica Lowndes (cross promotion!) on the Insider set, with questions provided by teleprompter. Spencer and surprise guest, Ann Shoket, sit in the control booth to watch and judge. Now, what the girls don’t know is that after the first question, the teleprompter will turn to nonsense, challenging the girls to think on their feet.

Everyone does okay, with Jennifer and Erin rocking it like they’ve been doing this for years. Rae is forgettable (I’m paraphrasing the judges’ remarks) and Nicole asks inappropriate questions. Kentucky reads the teleprompter slowly, careful about reading each word. She looks away and when she turns back, she’s faced with nonsense text. There’s confusion, panic, curses, and almost tears. She pulls it together and continues, but she’s flustered by her sudden illiteracy. The editing suggests she might have waited a good five minutes before continuing, but I’m guessing it was closer to 30 seconds. Still a long time for dead air, but the editing is shady here.

The winner: Erin! She chooses Jennifer and Rae to do some Seventeen photo shoot for Christmas.

Allow me a moment to pull out my poorly made soapbox. I don’t take issue with forcing a dyslexic model to read from a teleprompter, as a working model may need to develop this skill. But taking a severely dyslexic person and messing with her head seems cruel and unnecessary. Why couldn’t the screen just go blank? The nonsense symbols and words threw Kentucky into a panicked stupor, not the idea of winging the interview. Kentucky clearly couldn’t decide if she could no longer read at all or if something wasn’t right with the screen.

Despite Tyra’s “ignorance” during panel, I find it hard to believe that Tyra’s entire production team had no idea about Kentucky’s dyslexia. Possibly, Kentucky kept this information to herself, and possibly her interviews where she speaks openly about the disability could have been taped post-challenge so no one knew better. I have a hard time believing these two scenarios, but they’re both possibilities. Even if they are true, the sequence of events doesn’t favor Tyra. The whole challenge reads like a bad joke.

And thank you, I’m putting the soapbox away. Back at the house, Erin feels amazing because she is the challenge winner and therefore, better than everyone else. The model house never lacks for ego, that’s for sure.

This week, the Cover Girl commercial replaces the photo shoot. Each girl must write and memorize her own script. They are encouraged to make the script personal and natural. Erin irks her housemates by finishing hers first, memorizing it, and retiring early. And gloating. Never forget Erin’s habit of gloating.

Nigel Barker arrives to direct the shoot (Jay is there with purple hair, FYI). Nicole surprises everybody, including myself, with a pretty good commercial. She smizes and shows personality. Sundai speaks and moves awkwardly. I keep forgetting about her this week. Jennifer nails the commercial, even if she comes off a little insincere. Speaking of insincere, hello Brittany! Nigel thinks she sounds like a robot, even with (or because of) perfectly memorized lines. Rae delivers a shaky, uneven performance filled with worry. Kentucky stumbles through her commercial as well, and explains how her dyslexia negatively affects her memory. She doesn’t dwell on it and her personality shines through. Finally, Erin arrives on set full of confidence. However, she turns into a tearful mess as she forgets her lines, then cries, then has her make-up reapplied. Repeat that cycle three more times. She also manages a complete take, but can’t hold her smile through the last seconds, and crumbles.

Judging. Guest judge: that Kardashian fool. Don’t make me pull my soapbox back out!

Sundai possesses a car salesman quality – for clarification, this is unattractive. Rae pushes herself, but not far enough and the real Rae didn’t come through. Despite the overacting, the judges love Jennifer’s commercial. They don’t like Nicole as much as I do, but her smizing works in her favor. Kentucky takes a few lumps for her poor commercial, but here Tyra asks for edification on the whole pesky dyslexia thing. Ms. J says that despite all the craziness in her life, she still takes such beautiful pictures. What? The judges hit Brittany up with Robots Don’t Win Modeling Competitions critiques, and Tyra encourages her to use math to make herself accessible. What?? How, exactly, would that work? Finally, there’s Erin, who starts crying on the spot with frustration. Tyra thinks that a moving camera doesn’t love her as much as a still camera.

Over deliberation, Tyra repeats her crazy comment about Brittany turning math into modeling or something, and then we bring the girls back out. Called first: Jennifer. Bottom two: Erin and Rae. Four times with the make-up reapplying, Erin? All those tears, Erin? Meanwhile, Rae is boring. Going home: Rae.

Not a surprise, considering the comments in last week’s deliberation. That, plus Brittany’s Mr. Roboto personality, show her looking good for elimination next round. But all in all, the Insider challenge makes this a pretty terrible episode in my mind.

Next week: Overseas trip?

Listen to The J Factor with J.B. and Jaimie here or on iTunes.

Season 13, Episode 8: Interview 101 (originally aired October 21, 2009)

For more on America’s Next Top Model, click here.

Wednesdays at 8/7c on The CW

Photographs courtesy of The CW

Mad Men: How do you talk to Achilles?

Geez Louise.

Poor, poor Betty. I mean, I know a lot of people aren’t the character’s biggest fans, but after this week, I dare you to find me someone who wasn’t clutching their chest in sympathy for poor, lost-in-the-dark Betty Draper.

Here’s what happened this week:

Sterling Cooper is celebrating its 40th anniversary, and it’s up for sale, although so far only Pryce and his homesick wife know it (the latter is thrilled, but probably because Pryce never got around to telling her about the Bombay thing). My, what Duck’s ego and Roger’s lust have wrought. Paul and Peggy are competing for Don’s love via writing competing ads for Aqua Net and Western Union; Peggy, naturally, wins both times. Don is spending every single night with an increasingly stalker-ish Suzanne Farrell, and winds up running into her epileptic kid brother. He then helps him skip town to atone for Don’s own kid brother’s suicide, even though Lil’ Farrell seems a much less worthy candidate for Don’s assistance than did Lil’ Whitman. And Betty finds Don’s secret box where he stores the photos, dog tags, and divorce certificates of his past. She has a meltdown comparable to last season, when she first found out about Don and Bobbie, then tries to confront Don, only to have him not even come home that night. Like I said, with the chest-clutching.

I don’t like Suzanne Farrell. I keep waiting for her to do something that makes me see her as a complex character, but so far I’m just getting full-of-herself small-town wannabe-intellectual – basically, a cardboard cutout version of myself in high school, but smarter and with much better clothes. And even the three-dimensional version of myself in high school didn’t make for the caliber of character I expect to see on this show. “Nobody feels as good about what they do as you do,” Don tells Suzanne Farrell. “You’re sweet,” she replies, although I don’t think he meant it to be sweet. What does Don see in her, anyway? Is it just that she’s more mysterious, less complicated, less dependent, than Betty? One of the biggest mysteries of this show, ever since the pilot, has of course always been why any man would cheat on January Jones. The answer has always been that Don will never be happy or feel like his life is full enough, so he has to keep reaching for more more more. But why Suzanne Farrell, why now? Because she’s new and different, or because she’s more of the same? I have faith that the show will make this work, because it’s never created an uninteresting character before now, but we’ve seen an awful lot of Suzanne Farrell this season and I still don’t care about her, and I’m starting to get just a tad nervous.

Anyway, let’s go back to the Peggy/Paul drama, which this week serves mainly as comic relief and as even more evidence of Peggy’s awesomeness. Peggy has long shown a great ability to improvise – someone shoots down an idea and she springs another one on the spot – and Paul is finally ready to admit that it’s getting to him. He calls her on it, and she retorts, “No one’s keeping score,” which is the funniest line she’s had in a while. They both stay up all night to work on their Western Union campaigns, and neither comes up with anything – Peggy because she’s genuinely at a loss, Paul because he’s so drunk he forgets to write down his own supposedly brilliant concept. Peggy then improvs in Don’s office, an idea inspired by Paul’s failure and knowledge of Chinese trivia (gleaned, no doubt, during that otherwise useless Princeton education), and Paul stares at her in sheer awe. It’s a cool moment, and if that didn’t convince Don that yes, Peggy deserves a raise, then Peggy had better damn resign in the season finale.

Paul, Paul, Paul. What can I say about Paul? How can you analyze a character who’s an open book? Everything about him, from his politics to his writing style to his pot-smoking, is designed to make him appear a certain variety of cool that isn’t particularly respected by anyone he associates with, now that Sheila dumped him (unless you count Smitty – and if Smitty is Paul’s closest pseudo-beatnik friend, then now I’m even sadder for Paul than I was before). Paul’s a wannabe-novelist, a mid-level copywriter well on his way to turning into Freddy Rumsen, a serial monogamist who I can’t fathom any woman would ever want to settle down with, who spends his nights in his office listening to jazz and drinking and doing, uh, other things, and for what? Is this really how he envisioned that Ivy League scholarship paying off? I would like, in some future season, to see Paul redeem himself. Maybe, if Paul grows up a little, and Joan gets far far away from Greg before it’s too late, the two of them could get back together and make it work. I can see them appreciating each other’s respective talents, if Paul can just learn to keep his mouth shut and Joan can learn that her priorities at 36 really should be different than what she aspired to when she was 19.

Also this week: Sally thinks it’s hilarious that her parents’ chauffeur is Chinese. We meet Roger’s mother, who mistakes Jane for Margaret, which is awesome. No one’s ever asked Pryce where he went to school since he came to New York, which leads me to believe he didn’t go anywhere good. (Mrs. Pryce, by the way, who looked incredibly familiar when we first saw her, is the awesome Embeth Davidtz, who among other things starred in Junebug, which believe it or not had a lot of cool things about it in addition to Amy Adams.) Alison Brie’s name is in the opening credits, which was distressing because when I see her name I get all excited and assume I’ll get some quality Trudy time, and then when Trudy doesn’t even have a line but we spend twenty minutes with Suzanne Farrell and now, of all people, her kid brother (who looks really familiar too), well, I get sad. Lois is back, and none the worse for having chopped off a guy’s foot, which is too bad; I was looking forward to some character development on that front, since Lois is the closest thing we have on this show to a cartoon. Sal, apparently, really has left SC, as we don’t see him at all (boo!). Also absent is Joan, still (double boo), and we only get a split second of a silent Pete, which I don’t think has ever happened before; maybe Vincent Kartheiser got a movie role?

Some unanswered questions for the season:

• Did that chick from Undeclared ever move in with Peggy?
• Why is Don keeping so much cash in that drawer?
• Are we going to get closure on the Peggy/Duck/Pete/Gray thing?
• Is Sally still beating up overweight girls?
• Is Don going to find out about Henry Francis?
• When are Sal and Joan coming back to SC???

I’m sure there are more than that, but I’m still processing the sight of Betty putting Don’s keys back in his pocket. So I’ll just leave you with my favorite line of the week:

“My goodness Sally Draper, try not to take everything so personally.”

Season 3, Episode 10: The Color Blue (originally aired October 18, 2009)

For more on Mad Men, click here.

Sundays at 10PM/9C, AMC

Photographs courtesy of AMC and Carin Baer

The Amazing Race: Cold Karma

This week’s episode of The Amazing Race takes us to extremes.  Extreme heat, extreme cold, and extreme height.  But sadly,  no one passes out, no one gets frostbite, and we don’t see a petrified Mika bungee jump off of the world’s tallest building.

The Burj Dubai is twice the height of the Empire State building, and when word gets out that it’s the target for the second clue (the first clue essentially being, go to the Burg Dubai) Mika starts imagining the worst, and, frankly, so did I. You see both of us are afraid of heights. (This is a reason I watch the race rather than go on the race.)  Upon first hearing that the clue involves height,  Canaan tells Mika that she’s just going to have to change her attitude.  Mika tells Cameron he needs to quit telling her what to do.  Hey, remember back when we thought that Mika and Canaan were going to be nice cause they were, you know, Christians?

Anyway, turns out the clue required no bungee jumping, wall-scaling, or rappelling.  Instead the teams got to ride an elevator to the 124th floor.  What a let down.  I mean, really — we’ve gone from a 70 story jump off of Verzasca dam to riding an elevator?  Lame.

If anyone should be upset, it’s Lance.  Not doing a jump off of the Burj Dubai means that Lance will have considerably less bragging rights when he gets back to his trial lawyer life.  Poor guy; he and Keri were in last place this leg, and were eliminated.  Now, I know that he was an annoying braggart, and I know that you had to have a special affection for Fran Drescher to enjoy listening to Keri muse that nothing could tear them “apahhhht,” but the two of them kinda grew on me this episode.  Maybe it was the knowledge that they were certainly coming in last, but it was clear that the race was definitely harder than either had anticipated, and Lance’s humbling was kinda enjoyable to watch.  Or maybe after being privy to about 13 seasons of the race, I’ve just become impervious to couple bickering. But if that’s true, why am I enjoying my dislike of Mika and Canaan so much?

Too much thought.  Let’s move on.

So, Dubai is hot.  The Racers all tell me so, but I really know it because when the camera first walks out of the airport, the lens gets all steamy.  The Racers land at night, so you don’t get the full visual of Dubai’s opulence, but several comment, including Gary and Matt who remark that they don’t think there’s much of a recession there.  Mika and Canaan direct their cab driver to the fountain, which is apparently where the Burj Dubai is.  The driver doesn’t quite understand, and Canaan makes whooshing noises to translate.  Personally, I think the cab driver was just holding out for Canaan to dance.

Following the incredibly difficult task of pushing the “Down” button, the teams are sent to the Dubai Desert Conservation Reserve where they receive this week’s Roadblock.  Once again, the producers completely tease me with what looks like an awesome challenge by showing us camels in the desert.  Immediately I pictured our teams desperately trying to figure out how to make a camel. . .do anything, but then Phil revealed that the Roadblock only requires them to search the desert in 120 degree heat for water that has been buried in urns in the sand.  And some of the urns are empty.  And the landscape is completely flat, so it’s easy to lose your bearings.  Oh, and did I mention that it’s 120 degrees?

Heh.  Okay, so this is a good one.  But producers, next time I want the camel involved.

Brian’s the first to find the water.  On his way back to Ericka, he lets others know where the water is found.  He also gives Canaan and Mika directions to the Conservation Reserve. Brian later explains that he thinks the race is all about karma. I think that’s a bunch of hooey.  Then again,  after giving Brian and Ericka crap last week about being the only people who cared about interracial marriage anymore, this happened, so what do I know?

Megan and Cheyne don’t have to go to the desert, because they get this season’s only Fast Forward. It requires them to go to the Dubai Autodrome, and then one member must race around the track in 45 seconds or less.  Cheyne takes it because he’s a boy, and they like to drive real fast!   No, neither he nor Megan say that, but they might as well have.  Megan looks at Cheyne anxiously while he drives, and interviews that she’s uncomfortable not being in control.  Um, if you’re having a problem with not being in control for 45 seconds, I’m really puzzled as to how you’ve made it this far.  Anyway, they finish the leg in first place.

Personally, I would have loved to see Maria take the Fast Forward.  This week, the “Asian female driver” (her words, not mine — seriously, don’t email me) accidentally backs over a metal marker on a parking lot which punctures her radiator, and the thing starts gushing fluid.  Sam and Dan wait with them for reasons I don’t understand.  Tiffany actually tells them to go, but they stay.  Seriously guys, what the hell. . .?

From the desert, the teams go to Ski Dubai (do you think everything in Dubai has the word “Dubai” in the title?  Like “Library Dubai” and “Office Supplies Dubai” and “Goldfish Store Dubai”?)  where they must Build A Snowman or Find A Snowman.  To Build A Snowman, they have to move snow from the 28 degree temperature inside to the 130 degree temperature outside, and get it done before it melts.  In Find A Snowman, they must dig through the snow to find a small, cotton snowman and then give it to the world’s scariest polar bear.  Okay, it’s a guy in a smiley polar bear costume, and seriously, it was pretty scary.   I mean, they might as well have involved a clown.

Gary and Matt choose Find A Snowman, and as they’re digging, Gary asks Matt if he knows what the snowman looks like.  Matt says I have no idea.  Gary says hopefully it isn’t white.  That’s not what Ericka said.  (Rimshot!)  The Globetrotters also dig through the snow, as do Tiffany and Maria and Brian and Ericka, while their polar bear overlord silently watches them.  Producers, please make him stop.   Brian and Ericka find the snowman first, and head out; later Tiffany and Maria,  Gary and Matt, and Sam and Dan give it up and go build a snowman.  The Globetrotters then find the snowman, and on the way out, tell Canaan and Mika that they should bring their cold gear inside.  Seriously, these Racers are just too freakin’ nice this season.  Mika and Canaan pick Build A Snowman right away because Mika has never been on a sled before (how difficult does she think sledding is?  Seriously, you sit.  Look out for trees.   The end.)   Outside in the Dubai heat, Sam and Dan have some issues with nose placement on their snowman.  One of the brothers says “Just put it in!”  That’s what he said.  (I’m on a roll!)

Overall, pretty good episode, although I think they could have made better use of the tall building and the camels.   Better challenges next time, okay?

For another take on this episode, check out Losers Bite The Bullet on The Amazing Race by Cameron Cubbison.

Season 15, Episode 4: I’m Like Ricky Bobby (originally aired October 18, 2009)

For more on The Amazing Race, click here.

Sundays at 8pm ET/PT on CBS

Photographs courtesy of CBS

Losers Bite The Bullet on The Amazing Race

The best thing about The Amazing Race continues to be the locales. I’m frequently tempted to just mute the television so that I can enjoy the scenery and not have to listen to the obnoxious twits that dominate the “reality.”

The teams take to the Persian Gulf this week, and first up they’re scrambling to find the Burj Dubai, a structure we learn will eventually be the tallest building in the world, dethroning the Taipei Financial Center I assume. Once there, they have to find a fountain and then ride an elevator to the 124^th floor, at which point they receive their next clue.

There are two shuttles leaving for Burj Dubai, leaving fifteen minutes apart. The first four teams—Maria & Tiffany, Brian & Ericka (who continue to consistently remind everyone that they’re an interracial couple, just in case it wasn’t clear already), Sam & Dan and Meghan & Cheyne—leave on the first shuttle, while Mika & Canaan (duct tape them please), Lance & Keri (boil them in molten lava please), Flight Time and Big Easy (make them use real names please), and Gary & Matt bring up the rear.

Everyone arrives. Acrophobic wimp Mika starts to have a conniption, which I must admit was a little funny to watch. The next clue: the teams must head to the Dubai Mall, where they get cars and race to the Dubai Conservation Reserve. 4x4s await them there to take them to the next clue. It’s all kinda like See Spot Run, except instead of Spot you have mostly idiots. See Idiot#1 run. See Idiot #2 whine. See Idiot #3 whine while running. Everyone just goes from A to B to C. It gets rather monotonous, at least for me.

At this point in the show, we come across something called the Fast Forward, a challenge that if completed means the team can skip ahead in the race. The challenge: complete a lap of the Dubai Autodrome in less than 45 seconds. Only Meghan and Cheyne decide to try it. I would have thought the Harlem Globetrotter guys who insist on not using real names would have gone for it.

Concurrently, the rest of the teams (from the first group) drive across the desert and encounter their Roadblock, which involves one member taking a bag and looking for water stored in urns. When the bag is filled, they give it to a guy and he gives them their next clue. Obnoxious blowhards Lance and Keri bring up the rear this whole time. They just can’t get it together and watching that is the highlight of the show. And seeing what happens to them is the reason to keep watching through the end. The only reason.

For another take on this episode, check out Cold Karma by Alana D.

Season 15, Episode 4: I’m Like Ricky Bobby (originally aired October 18, 2009)

For more on The Amazing Race, click here.

Sundays at 8pm ET/PT on CBS

Photographs courtesy of CBS

House: Brave Heart (No, Not With Mel In A Kilt)

You’d almost swear you were watching a big budget action extravaganza instead of the latest episode of House, as it opens with a pretty kickass chase sequence. Cops are pursuing a bad guy on foot through back alleys and over fences and up a building. We don’t know what he did, but the guy is really fast and he’s almost as good as the parkour bombmaker in the beginning of Casino Royale (and speaking of Bond, I’d like to take this opportunity to say that I think Pierce Brosnan was an infinitely better and more nuanced Bond, and if the producers had given him the scripts they’re giving Daniel Craig now, the movies would have been much better). The chase ends when one of the cops decides he’s Martin Riggs and tries to leap from one building to another, fails, plummets thirty feet and hits the ground hard. This opening is so well-made it plays like a short film complete unto itself.

The cop’s name is Donny, and miraculously he survived and is recuperating in Princeton-Plainsboro. But there’s another problem: he’s convinced that he’s going to drop dead in the near future because he’s about to turn forty and that’s the same age his father, grandfather and great-grandfather were when they died from a heart attack. He has seen myriad cardiologists over the years who have all told him that his heart is fine, but Donny doesn’t believe them. He has sworn off having kids or getting married because he didn’t want to cause anyone the grief his father caused him. Hence his willingness to try an impossible rooftop jump, because if you’re going to die soon anyway, what’s the point in being cautious?

House and the team want to discharge Donny, but Cameron takes an interest in his case. She wants to determine for sure that he really doesn’t have a mysterious heart problem and isn’t a timebomb waiting to happen. It’s funny that I’ve finally started to warm up (slightly) to Cameron just now when Jennifer Morrison is leaving the show. Oh well. I’ll try not to lose too much sleep over it (I’m already losing enough sleep as it is).

Foreman orders the usual battery of tests and they start trying to diagnose Donny. The case gets complicated when a former lover of Donny’s shows up at the hospital and reveals that Donny has a son. She never told him because they were already breaking up when she found out she was pregnant and knew Donny didn’t want children. Yikes.

But as for House personally, he has a couple of things going on this week. First, Cuddy tells him he needs to stop pretending and just hanging out at the hospital, and that he has to complete 120 hours of rounds in order to get his license back. House of course doesn’t want to do his rounds, so he does what he does best: he acts like a mischievous child until he gets the doctor supervising him to sign off on his hours. Man I wish I had tried to do that in AP Government years ago to get out of my civic hours.

House also thinks he’s hearing voices at Wilson’s. After six weeks, he’s still sleeping on Wilson’s couch and not in his guest room. He thinks that’s because Wilson turned that room into a shrine to his dead girlfriend Amber (better known as Cutthroat Bitch) and isn’t ready to have anyone be in that room. All this is fine, but I really hope House doesn’t start seeing Amber again. She’s dead and I’d like to keep it that way.

There’s a pretty big twist involving the patient, and we get more into the fallout of Chase murdering Dibala. Some of it feels a little forced, but then again, at least Chase has something to do now on the show besides look pretty and sound Australian. It’s a very strong episode that benefited greatly from having no Thirteen and a diminished dose of Foreman. Let’s keep all that up.

For another take on this episode, read Acronyms Aplenty by Stephanie Jaar.

Season 6, Episode 5: Brave Heart (originally aired October 19, 2009)

For more on House, click here.

Tuesdays 8/7c on FOX

Photographs courtesy of NBC Universal, Michael Yarish

House: Acronyms Aplenty

Nothing drives me crazier than a sports game taking up valuable primetime slots on a network. Yes, more so than the Jay Leno show. This week, it was the Yankees vs the Angels which decided to take up forty-three extra minutes before House finally came on. Closing the Facebook chat window where I had been ranting with a fellow House fan, I gave my full attention to the action taking place on the screen.

An exciting, fast-paced police chase (on foot) opens up this week’s episode. Our Patient of the Week is a cop named Donny who is faced with the decision on whether or not he wants to jump from one roof to the next to catch the suspect or if he should just let the suspect escape. Donny decides to jump, but misses the roof and falls from a deadly height. Miraculously, he survives and ends up at Princeton Plainsboro with some broken bones and a collapsed lung.

At first, you may think Donny takes his job extremely seriously and wanted more than anything to catch the suspect. However, we quickly find out from Donny’s partner that Donny has a habit of being reckless because he believes he’s going to die at forty, anyways – just like his father and grandfather before him. Cameron insists he go under Dr. House’s care and that they can find out what’s wrong with him and prevent such an early death.

House doesn’t think the team has much of a case going for them. If he were officially in charge of the team, he would have made them drop the case. Lucky for Donny, it’s Foreman who is making the calls here so the team begins to try and diagnose him. Meanwhile, a bombshell is dropped when Donny’s former girlfriend arrives to tell them that she and Donny had a son together, Michael, whom Donny doesn’t know about. She’s worried Michael may have the same mysterious condition as his father. Once he finds out, Donny wants nothing to do with his son; he believes he is sparing Michael the pain of having to lose a father.

House is becoming fed up, thinking this whole case is pointless. So dragging Chase along, the two of them come up with a completely made up disease (“Ortoli Syndrome”) and House gives him some candy pills to take home. Later that night, Foreman pays House a visit, and now I think my notes on the episode are really the only way to give you the raw rundown of what happened next:

Donny collapses and dies four hours after being discharged. Noooooooooo Father/son were supposed to get better and reconnect!

House blames himself before performing autopsy with Foreman: “I don’t think there’s anything we screw up we haven’t already screwed up.”

WTF HE’S NOT DEAD

That was definitely by far one of the creepiest moments ever on House. Slicing a man open only to find out he’s still alive?! OMG. Only acronyms seem to be able to describe this situation!

Now House believes they really do have a legitimate case on their hands (and it only took slicing someone open to figure that out!). The team plays around with the theory of bone cancer. Donny begins complaining of jaw pain and pulls out of his own perfectly healthy tooth! That’s when it clicks for House: Donny is suffering from a type of brain aneurism which causes Donny to do reckless things. House calls it a “self-destruct” button that eventually causes the heart to stop.

There were a lot of things going on in this episode aside from Donny’s case. The guilt from killing Dibala is starting to catch up to Chase even more. He can’t enter the ICU room without having flashbacks from Dibala’s final moments. Chase goes around looking for answers: he consults with Donny who tells him of two cops he knew who once shot suspects. Donny says one cop was perfectly okay afterwards, while the other was never able to get over it. Chase also goes to confession, hoping to find an answer there except it’s not the answer he particularly wants to hear. The priest tells Chase to turn himself in. Cameron is still supects something is wrong, but Chase remains mum even when he returns home completely drunk.

House is still living it up with Wilson, but Wilson wants him to move to the second bedroom (aka: the shrine of Amber) instead of sleeping on the couch. House hears whispers at night and begins wondering if he’s going crazy again, even though he’s off the Vicodin. Turns out it’s nothing more than Wilson’s voice carrying through the vents as he speaks to Amber at night. Sadness all around.

It should also be noted that this episode was Thirteen-free and I, for one, certainly did not miss her presence. And with that, I shall see you again in November.

For another take on this episode, read Brave Heart (No, not with Mel in a kilt) by Cameron Cubbison.

Season 6, Episode 5: Brave Heart (originally aired October 19, 2009)

For more on House, click here.

Tuesdays 8/7c on FOX

Photographs courtesy of NBC Universal, Michael Yarish

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