Reality Ramble #1

The week in Reality TV: 11/9/07-11/15/07

Amazing Race
I had Tivo issues so I missed about 10 minutes in the middle. Not a good season for the gay competitors..Last week Ari went, and now it was the lesbian ministers. I loved when Kate said that they have a strong faith in God but don’t think he really cares if they win the show or not. I always hated when people on reality shows (Vecepia from Survivor: Marquesas was the worst at this) assume that God wants them to win because they deserve it..I never understood why God would think they are more worthy than anyone else. Anyway, my initial pick to win, based on no scientific evidence at all, is TK and Rachel. I’m rooting for Kynt and Vyxen. I’m really glad they cut the number of episodes this season and there won’t be any non-elimination episodes. I always felt cheated after watching those. I never understood why they didn’t just cast more teams in the beginning.

America's Next Top Model
Who else out there agrees with me that this is the least exciting season ever because of the cast. No one even looks like a model to me. I tend to be fans of the quirky and unique girls (like Jade and Lisa D'Amato from Cycle 5). that's why my favorite this season was Victoria. Out of the girls left, I'd like to see Heather win but of course she's not going to. There's no way they'll let someone with a mental disability be America's next top model. Hopefully, Bianca doesn't win because she seems like an ugly person inside and out. I also loathe Tyra Banks and her hipocrysy. She's always telling the girls to be themselves but then wants them to change the things about them that make them unique.

America’s Psychic Challenge
I’m assuming that there’s not many of you out there watching this show considering it airs Friday nights on Lifetime, but with two dual tuner Tivo’s in my house, it doesn’t matter when a series airs. Anyway, this is a 8 episode series that is a tournament including 16 psychics. 4 psychics compete each week in 3 challenges and the 2 with the lowest scores are eliminated. This week, the psychics were presented with 5 closed doors, and they had to choose which of the 5 rooms contained someone facing their greatest fear. 4 of the rooms had people relaxing and 1 of them had a woman with her hands in a bowl full of cockroaches. In the second challenge, they were presented with 2 people with illnesses and they had to identify what those illnesses were based on no information at all. For the third challenge, they were taken to the roof of a hotel where a fire occurred 6 years ago. They had to identify as many aspects of what happened there as they could.
Surprisingly it’s been an interesting show and I hope for future seasons. One of the psychics Jackie is from New Orleans and is a very interesting personality. She refuses to hug anyone and even gives vague answers during some of the challenges, not caring how many points she’s going to receive. One of the other contestants predicted that Jackie would get her own show at the end of this. She referrs to herself as the White Serpent and must be doing something right because she’s in the semifinals.

America’s Most Smartest Model
It was so obvious to me that no one was going to get cut after they sent Blonde Rachel home. She’s not even pretty and is sooooooo dumb. Now, it’s going to be tough to eliminate people because they’re all pretty good. My pick to go next is Angela because she’s boring and bland. I’m loving t his show though, and who would have thought that a show obviously meant to spoof Top Model would be much better than that is this season.

Beauty And the Geek
I'm HEAVILY rooting for Dave and Jasmine. They're just so cute and sweet. (Check out www.datedavid.org) I wouldn't be terribly upset if Sam and Nicole won because he hasn't turned out to be as horrible as I was thinking he would be. I wish they had a better way to handle eliminations. I think it would be a much more exciting competition if they switched partners every week. Every thing else would stay the same, with the winners of the 2 competitions nominating the 2 teams for elimination. If they want to keep up the pretense that this really is a social experiment wouldn't it be valuable for the beauties to learn from as many geeks as possible and vice versa?

Big Brother
Due to the writer’s strike, news came out this week that CBS is looking to prepare a new edition of Big Brother for January or February. There’s rumors that it might even be a celebrity edition. First of all, I HATE the idea of doing a celebrity edition of any of these competition reality shows. I mean, have you seen the “celebritites” that are going to be on The Apprentice: Donald Trump? I always feel like they have nowhere near the motivation to play these games as normal contestants do. Also, I’m not too crazy about the idea of a new Big Brother coming up so soon. I prefer it to be a yearly show so I can really build up my anticipation. And it’s way too soon to follow up the entertainment that was Evel Dick (By the way, did you hear that Danielle left her boyfriend and is now living with Nick).

Biggest Loser
Every week I wonder why I watch this...Probably because it's one of the few shows that Charles and I watch together and it's tons of fun to make fun of while it's on,and because I have a crush on Jillian. I hate the way they always change the time of the episodes from 1.5 to 1 to 2 hours. Alison Sweeney is a much better host than Caroline Rhea. I always prefer the male contestants to the females on this show, but this season, the females are particularly loathsome. Does anyone else notice that there comes a point in every season where they stop having the men take off their shirts during weigh-ins? maybe because they have too much excess skin?

I Love New York
The order of elimination over the next few episodes can’t be the same as the order she gave out the chains, could it? It certainly seems that is how it is going to be. But I predict The Entertainer will go before Pretty does. I still don’t understand why anyone would want to be with a woman like New York when she’s rude enough to spit out their food right in front of them. But this whole show is an act anyway. I’m looking forward to seeing Chance in the next episode. I never really cared for him, but he’s entertaining. My favorite episode of last season was when he yelled that he was going to come and beat up Tango so Tango should “Give me your address”

Next Great American Band
What a wasted opportunity. I wasn't expecting much from this, but it should be better than it is. I was a HUGE fan of both seasons of Rock Star and thought the talent on both seasons was amazing. But on this show? It seems like they went out and found the blandest, most generic groups available. And it's so obvious that Sixwire is going to win. Middle America wouldn't have it any other way. Even my 2 favorite bands, Franklin Bridge and Dot Dot Dot aren't very talented either. At least The Light Of Doom are interesting to watch because they're kids but all their songs sound the same. Just goes to show you how important casting is....It takes me about 5 minutes to get through the whole show with fast forwarding, so that's enough time I've spent writing about it.

Phenomenon
Another example of a reality show that wasted a good idea. They should have made this show in the format of Project Runway instead, like they also should have done with On The Lot. I'm not a fan of the tricks where they guess which vase the poisionous snake is in, etc because it's so obvious that one of them is marked. But there have been some "How did they do that?" moments. I'm glad this is a short show and only has 1 more episode.

Project Runway
I'm very excited to have this show back. Just like everyone else, I think this is the best reality competition show and defintiely is the pioneer of that genre. Even in the 4th season, I'm still amazed by the clothes that these people are able to come up with such a short time and with such restrictions. I never quite understood how they're able to alter the garmants so quickly to fit their specific model. It looks like they cast some great personalities and interesting characters this season. Even with all the excitement, I have to say that I was underwhelmed by the runway show. None of the outfits really impressed me and nothing stood out. I'm expecting bigger and better things from these guys in the weeks to come. The judges made the right decisions in their bottom 3 and eliminations. It was fun to watch the show with Charles. He has never seen it before and kept saying "What a cool reality show..They thought of everything"

Salt N Pepa Show
Like all other celebreality shows, it's obvious that many of these situations are set up by the producers. In the case of this show, I don't care! It's such fun to see 2 people who genuniely seem so cool. I've loved Pepa on Surreal Life and I'm loving her here. It's fun to see Salt struggle with her obvious lack of interest in reviving their career balanced with her love of her friend Pepa and wanting to make her happy. How funny was it a few episodes ago when they changed the lyrics of Whatta Man from "A body like Arnold" to "A body like Obama"?

The Shot
What took so long to think of a photography competition? This is a fairly generic show that would not feel out of place on Bravo among Project Runway and Top Chef. I'll watch it to the end but it's not one that will stick in my memory. During the first episode, I knew I recognized contestant Airic from somewhere but I just couldn't place him. A google search showed me that he was one of the contestants on WE's 2005 show "Style Me With Rachel Hunter" I guess he's a stylist and a photographer. I hate when people are cast on multiple shows stealing other people's spots! Marcus Foy has been on 3 shows (Survival Of The Richest, The Janice Dickenson Modeling Agency, and A Shot Of Love With Tila Tequila) and I hated him on all 3. It was very satisfying for me when Janice fired him.

Survivor
Pretty boring episode this week, but this stage of the season usually is. I always love when the obvious choice for elmination wins the immunity and they have to go to plan B. It seems like everyone liked Frosti but he wasn't a very strategic player. He could have done a lot more to cook something up. There's a lot of options and a lot of potential alliances but he wasn't able take advantage of them. I also don't like that they broke the casting rules and cast him even though he was onlly 20 years. I'm sure there's so many people out there that didn't apply because they weren't yet 21 and that sucks for them. I also feel that Todd made a huge mistake last week not getting rid of James and I hope it doesn't come back to haunt him because I"m rooting for him (and Denise)
In other Survivor news, I was pleasantly surprised when I read the rumored cast of Survivor 16 which is an all-stars edition including players from seasons 9-15. If this rumor holds up, it looks like they selected a good diversity of interesting players. I’m really glad they didn’t select any winners because they shouldn’t be given another chance to play!!! However, there are 2 people from this current season rumored to be in the cast, so now I’m not suspecting them to win. I sort of wish I didn’t know this, so I won’t name them incase anyone hasn’t seen the rumored cast yet.

Ultimate Fighter
I had a conflict of interest this episode because I didn't want Mac to win, but I'm a fan of Matt Hughes, and can't stand Matt Serra. At least Mac realizes that he's been grumpy and seems like he wants to change. I got into this show late (season 5), but I'm glad I did. I appreciate that it's a very simple format, a single elimination tournament. I don't quite understand all the intricacies of mixed martial arts so the fights are usually the most boring part of the episode for me. I still do enjoy it and am looking forward to receiving seasons 1, 2, and 3 from Netflix.

Still On The Tivo
A Shot Of Love With Tila Tequila, Kid Nation