| America's Next Top Model, Kitchen Nightmares, Dancing with the Stars, Kid Nation, Top Chef |
[Sep. 27th, 2007|11:13 am] |
America’s Next Top Model
I don’t know any of these people yet, so its kind of hard to comment on them much. I do note that there’s a Dallasite in the mix, Ambreal, so yay! I was also flipping from ANTM to DWTS to Kid Nation and so missed the elimination challenge. However, I did see during the judging that there was one, and thank goodness for that. I love the elimination challenges and missed them very much. The girl who was booted looked really bland. The girl who was almost booted - Ebony, I think - has a beautiful face. I’m glad she stayed. And while I’m delighted they graphically demonstrated how ugly smoking can eventually make you, the visuals kinda made me want to be sick. I quit in 1994 and I was still cringing. They got some serious realism in there. The girl who couldn’t quit laughing cracked me up but pissed Tyra off. She better shape up, because I think I like her.
The house this time is very cool. I love the runway in their living room.
Next week is makeovers, right? That’s always one of my favs.
Kitchen Nightmares
Okay, if the nasty “after” smoking pictures weren’t enough to make me ill, the first half of this episode of Kitchen Nightmares surely was. And I was very stupidly trying to eat dinner at the time. I made a mental note to never, ever attempt to eat dinner during the first half of Kitchen Nightmares again. I think that Martin guy had a substance abuse problem. He was really very out of touch with reality. But I blame the other two managers and the chef and actually the owner as well for the nasty state of the kitchen and the “food” in it. I cannot believe any of them stood by and let rotten, disgusting stuff like that go out. I also can’t believe they hadn’t been shut down by the Board of Health or whoever inspects restaurants in New York, or been sued. I can completely believe the place was empty most of the time.
Any guesses on why they draped sheets on the walls? My guess is that the walls were dirty with smooshed bugs and smeared food and grease and they were trying to cover it up. Paint would have been just as cheap though, wouldn’t it?
The revised menu looked delicious. I grew up with really bad Texas Indian food. Really bad. So I’ve always been reluctant to try it until about a year ago when ![[info]](http://www.journalfen.net/img/userinfo.gif) jenni_talula convinced me to try Chicken Korma and it was yum. I still don’t like spicey-hot curries, but the lighter dishes on the new menu at last night’s KN restaurant, I’d definitely try. And thank goodness they quit trying to serve American and Italian food. I didn’t understand the name thing. I did understand changing to a more suitable name, but they seemed to still keep the old name in smaller print on the awning. That was weird. And why Dillions? Wasn’t it Dillon’s before? Was that an error?
Also cool - getting to see the kitchen at London. If I get to NYC anytime soon, I really want to try to go there.
Overall it was a fun but really gross episode.
Dancing with the Stars
I watched a total of about 4 minutes of this. Who went home was no surprise after the judging and the show basically telling everyone to vote her off. I guess we are stuck with Cuban for another week, but again he wasn’t completely wretched so that’s okay. Wayne shoulda gone though. Josie wasn’t any good at dancing, but Wayne was much worse.
But, the main issue? The burning question?
WTF WAS THAT HIDEOUS MONSTROSITY DOLLY PARTON WEARING?!?
Kid Nation
I don’t think I’ve reviewed this before, so I’ll cover both the episodes I’ve seen. I kept up a little with the pre-show hysteria and was originally on the side of people who thought leaving 40 kids completely alone to take care of themselves and filming it for prime time TV was a uniquely bad idea. After watching two episodes, I now know that these kids are anything but alone and the show is very contrived, so I’m no longer worried about them and can just enjoy (or in some cases, not enjoy) watching.
I really do wish there was a lot less producer interference. I don’t think the set up they’ve got is what would have come about naturally, at all. In fact, in the first episode the kids divided themselves very naturally (along the gender and age lines you’d expect at these ages) and seemed to have divvied up the initial chores according to interest and/or ability. I wish they’d quit pretending that the producers’ little book of directions is a survival manual left by the town’s original settler. No one believes it and it’s just a stupid concept. The four “districts” are clearly a contrivance to make it easier to run the weekley challenges, though it is probably a good idea that they have 4 groups of 10 rather than 2 groups of 20. Interestingly, they let the four town council members choose who would be in their district, and ended up with almost the same gender/age divisions, only much more divided than they were originally. That seems to be working fairly well, though there is going to be a civil war eventually if they keep these same council members the entire time. Laurel and Sanjay are okay. But Mike is glaringly biased, has a massive chip on his shoulder and is an ineffective leader while Taylor is simply too young and unmotivated for the job.
What isn’t working is the way the town’s economy and labor system was set up. Unsurprisingly, we have the well-known-to-Survivor fans dicotomy of contestants who are great at daily life and suck at challenges and contestants who are great at challenges and suck at daily life. As a result, the group least able to function well day-to-day is in charge of one of the most important tasks: cooking. And even though the challenge is supposed to change things up from week to week, the same outcome’s happened with the greens and yellows two weeks in a row. Laurel seems to have made a point of choosing the least athletic and perhaps least competent but sweetest members for her district (with the exception of Sophia and maybe Michael) and thus the greens plod on in their laborer capacity for almost no money while also taking on the kitchen duties the yellow district neglects.
The gold star gimmick is okay and I can’t argue too much against the first two people to receive it (especially Sophia, the first). However, Mike’s completely wrong to be anti-Greg just because Greg is working hard to win. People like to be rewarded for their hard work, after all and that whole “good of the town” schtick is nice but let’s get real here. It’s not unethical or immoral to want to win something. Also, Mike’s been angry with Greg since the first day of this thing when Greg showed the bratty little whiner up while they were pulling their carts full of stuff into town. But Greg also needs to act like the older, more mature kid he really is and start getting the other kids on his side rather than getting angry and lashing out.
Thanks to Mike’s bias and Taylor’s immaturity, I think we are rapidly moving towards a revolution. Michael the Orator will probably step in to calm everyone down, but unless they make some real changes, if the two most skilled (and possibly most mature) and most disgruntled cast members (Sophia-Green and Greg-Blue) ever sit down and talk, we may get to watch a coup d’etat.
I can’t complain. In fact, it would be the funnest thing to happen on the show.
As for a few other cast members:
- Emilie - should have gone on home last night. She bugs me.
- Jared - I knew there was a kid in the first ep who I couldn’t stand. Last night I put his name and face and grating voice together finally. I can’t stand this kid and the producers are only making him more and more unloveable. He’s so full of himself that I’m surprised the other kids can tolerate him. I’m not surprised, however, that he’s on Mike’s team. That district is rapidly turning into Team Smug Brat for me.
Top Chef
Aspen’s so pretty!
That Quickfire was a blast. I love trout and it was fun watching them try to cook using coolers and stumps for tables.
Elk? Dry and gamey. I’ve had it and I think it’s very hard to cook properly. But I’m glad that for this challenge they didn’t have any really bizarre time or space constraints. I think Casey was right not to use her Asian seasoning on the elk. But she probably should have known game takes a bit longer to cook and most people don’t like it rare. She’s a Texan, after all. Not that elk is all that common here. It’s available on menus at some upscale and/or game-oriented restaurant, but it’s not something you can just pick up at Kroger’s. Whole Foods or Central Market, maybe but not a typical grocery store.
Dale’s dish sounded wonderful and I’m glad he won and made it to the finals. In fact, I think they have exactly the correct three people in the finals. Brian’s craziness came through loud and clear and it really was time for him to go, I think. I’m glad I got to watch his crazy pretty as long as I did, though.
I was a little surprised 69% of the people calling in thought Hung should get booted. Yeah, okay, some people don’t like him, but he is unarguably the best technical chef in the thing. I kind of hope he makes something Vietnamese next week because OMG I love Vietnamese food and then we’ll get an Asian food showdown between him and Casey.
Only one more week! Boo! And no Project Runway til November 14! Boo!
Wednesday’s a very busy night! I still have a taped episode of Dirty Sexy Money to watch, as well.
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