The Amazing Race 3

It is so weird going back through these older seasons and having new opinions of people. Clearly I’ve aged a bit since The Amazing Race 3 aired way back in 2002 cause who I liked before I didn’t like now and vice versa.

When watching this season, much like season 2, it was almost like watching it fresh. I remembered a few things including being able to remember who made it far and who didn’t, but a lot of the smaller things and interactions I did not. For instance I thought an alliance in the Amazing Race was actually a fairly new thing that started around the tenth season but here was one in season three. Yes it didn’t really work out and wasn’t as official as in the newer seasons but it was still interesting seeing Flo/Zach, Aaron/Arianne, and Heather/Eve team up against the twins Derek/Drew. I had also completely forgot about Ken/Gerard teaming up with Derek/Drew.

Going into this I thought John Vito/Jill were my favorites they were the ones I was rooting for back in the day. However I found them kind of bland and didn’t really like John Vito that much. I ended up like the comedic Ken and Gerard over them and I am now wondering why those two weren’t picked for All Stars and Jill and Vito were. I also found out how much I actually like Teri and Ian. I remembered liking them a lot more in All Stars then I did in season three but by the end when you have them with the other teams it is hard to not root for them because they are so head strong and work actually pretty well. Yes they berate one another but it works for them and they still like each other. They actually seemed kind of sweet which is kind of hard to say for Ian but I actually liked him this time.

This season takes a few episodes to really get good but by episode five is where things start to shine. This is one of the few seasons where dynamics with the other teams really works well. There is competition but they all look like they are enjoying it. I don’t think it is as mean as in the newer seasons but it is tense at some points. Amazing Race works the best when the teams are all super competitive and have strong opinions on other teams.

Flo and Zach are such oddball winners and even now it is so weird seeing them come through at the end. Flo is just a terrible terrible person to watch in the last few episodes, entertaining yes, but you want to wring her neck. She basically gives up and then they go on to win the whole thing. Unfortunately editing like this kind of isn’t around as much anymore. It was refreshing seeing such a developed character of Flo who I liked at some points and hated at others. Just because somebody wins doesn’t mean that they have to get a great edit. Unfortunately that seems to be the case in newer seasons of shows which actually makes me dislike a lot of the winners.

This is one of my favorite seasons of the Amazing Race, in my top three. I think it is hard for any show to really compete.

DVD: Arrested Development Season 3

I did not want this to end. How bittersweet it was. I just loved this show and it is so disappointing that it ended when it did. Now I hear, based on wikipedia, that Mitch Hurwitz was fine that it ended because he said that the quality never dropped and that the actors were ready to move on but…it just seemed to end to soon. Like why couldn’t the final season also be 22 episodes? Why FOX? The cast just seems like they are having such fun and the third season catered to all of the long term fans when almost all of the jokes were becoming long running gags from previous episodes.

My favorite story arc in this final season has got to be the Rita/MR F one. It completely got me. It seems so obvious now looking back but the show did such a good job making you think that she was just some quirky character but in actuality it all adds up. Charlize Theron did an amazing job with it. She played it up at the right moments and was subtle in the other moments. It was never unbelievable it was just solid. And like in previous seasons all of the ensemble characters were working great as well which is what this show is so great at doing. The intertwining plots just fall into place.

Other highlights of this season was Bob Loblaw, Maeby and George Michael actually getting married, Justine Bateman, and the Save Our Bluths dinner. Plus all of the inside jokes about other networks or fans trying to save the show.

Plus a final amazing feat has got to be the final episode. It just is everything about the show and ties up so many loose ends. It is what a finale of a show needs to be. It is what finales should actually strive to be. I think I said that about something else recently but this show did it as well. It not only mirrored the pilot but brought the plot in a new direction and went all out but still remained believable in the world that is Arrested Development.

Great show and a great cast. I cannot say how much I love this show. If you haven’t seen it go to Hulu which has every episode or go out and buy the first season on DVD. You will not be disappointed in the slightest.

Jade

What a rough very rough show to go through but it gave me a new appreciation for Jade and what she was trying to do. Jade was the television series that Jade Goody filmed during her final few months battling cancer before she died. It aired various episodes on the British television channel Living. It chronicled the heartbreaking and horrible truths of cancer as Jade struggled to get just some more money for her kids. Everything from right after finding out she had cancer all the way until the end.

When I first learned of Jade Goody in January 2007 I was not impressed. She was vile and a horrible person in the Celebrity Big Brother that year. I don’t know if what she did to Shilpa Shetty should be deemed bullying (which is actually a harsh accusation in the UK) but she definitely went a biit far. It just amazed me that such a person from a reality show could become so famous. Even looking back at the first seasons of American shows nobody is quite like Jade Goody or had the success she had (without actually having a talent). She was famous for being on a reality show and had tv series, books, perfumes, other reality shows, etc. Heck the closest to her could be some of the people from the first or second season of Survivor but I still haven’t seen a Jerri Manthey or Richard Hatch perfume.

In Big Brother UK 3 Jade was actually fairly innocent when it started and really only got on my nerves at the end but I liked her just a little bit better and I was even going to watch her stint in Indian Big Brother until she left.

Anyway I wasn’t really sure what to think of Jade. Her behavior was terrible in Celebrity Big Brother and from what else I had scene it wasn’t much better. In fact, and I don’t like to admit it, when I first heard about her having cancer it seemed a bit of a marketing ploy right down her ally. Someone who is sick with cancer in order to win the public approval back. Yes a horrible thing to do but I don’t know if Jade Goody would have been above that.

This series was interesting though and got painful to watch at the end. The first two episodes had a vibrant Jade who took care of her kids and went out and by the end she had to take a lot of naps and looked skinny and tired. The saddest moments were around Christmas and her pained eyes when she looked out from a helicopter right before her wedding. Not much to describe about the series, we just see Jade’s health get worse as she goes from vacation to vacation or to her doctors visits or getting ready for the wedding. You wonder why she is doing this but you see how smart she is. She is trying to get at least a little bit more money for her kids.

I got a newfound liking of Jade because she was such a great personality and perfect for television. She would literally say anything. She was more smart then what she let others believe and she knew how to work the media angle plus it would be hard to see anybody go through this.

I’ve rambled on a bit, but this is something to download if you can find it online. Even if you don’t know anything about Jade Goody. It would be the equivalent of seeing any big reality star going through this but doing it for his or her family and it might just make you like Jade.

Big Brother UK 10 – Week 10

At one point in this series it seemed a no brainer that Freddie was going to win this whole thing. In fact I remember many people writing off this series because they thought it was going to be really predictable. Heck even though I was starting to wane on him I still thought we would be seeing Freddie on finale night but no Freddie is out three weeks early and Marcus beat him.

I was shocked when I heard that he had gotten out especially to Marcus who I thought the public didn’t really like. Yes the vote was close and people disliking Freddie had something to do with it but it was just crazy that he is gone from the show. These last three weeks are going to be very interesting and different to watch. Yes there was a point around weeks 6 through 8 where Noirin became the star of the show but besides Freddie has been one of the main people this season has focused on especially in these last few weeks and in the first few weeks of the show.

He was just such an interesting character. Usually the posh contestants do not last long because the public just doesn’t want to see them and the housemates get sick of them but Freddie had an endearing quality. He didn’t look down on people and didn’t talk up his money. He was just himself. Which was great. He really didn’t care what others thought of him. Yes he tried to change the way he interacted with people after the first few weeks but eventually even his personality won over people like Marcus and Siavash.

First few weeks Freddie was my favorite. As soon as Angel was gone Freddie was the reason why I was watching the show. He was fun, weird, quirky, and odd. He stood up to the people who were the “bad guys” and it was great seeing his underdog story. The house couldn’t get rid of him. But then Freddie started getting a bit to preoccupied with gameplaying and tactics. He really did think that everyone had some sort of plan and was really overanalyzing everything. He also couldn’t just leave things alone (a problem Bea also has but would never admit). Then he kind of started to fall, not only because of that, but because of Bea. She dragged him down and we kind of lost the endearing and underdog Freddie. Freddie then sort of got some confidence and decided to be a bit more pompous about his position. He lost his genuine quality a bit and became kind of obnoxious. This last week he wasn’t that bad because Bea became horrendous but you could definitely see that this wasn’t the Freddie we saw in the first few weeks anymore.

Freddie was a good housemate but he was pissing me off by the end of this. I just wanted all of the Bea and Freddie crap to stop because none of us care about you guys. Actually I would think that Marcus is my number two housemate right now so I am glad that he stayed.

The shopping task this week was atrocious. If we have to do three or four pick a country tasks does one of them have to be Great Britain? The only rewarding part was seeing Rodrigo look like an ass thinking he was meeting the Queen and then still being ok when the news was broken to him.

Lisa of all people actually went up for me this week. I am seeing some nice Lisa moments that we saw in the first week. I am actually fine with Rodrigo, Bea, and David to all leave at this point and have Lisa in the final five. She has actually really come back. I am still a bit wary of her cause her attitude against Freddie was no better then his. She is still a hypocrite but has really started to show her endearing side this week and hopefully that continues. That could push her to at least fourth place if David is still around on the finale night.

This show is Sophie’s to lose at this point. I will be really disappointed if she gets out earlier then the final three. She is the only one in there who I truly appreciate and I hope she can pull off a victory and win that would be great.

This is going to be a very interesting week without Freddie, Noirin, or Sree around (arguably the biggest characters this season). I cannot wait to see how these final few weeks go because anything could happen or change the outcome of who wins this…well hopefully.

Big Brother UK 10 – Week 9

Oh no not Hira. I really warmed up to her this week especially after the huge cupcake task. She was brilliant and was quickly becoming one of my favorites. In fact if this week hadn’t been a vote to save and been a vote to evict then she probably would still be in there. Yes maybe she wasn’t offering that much but at least she wasn’t bitching like crazy like the rest of the current crop. The other ones all have issues with each other and are all trying to play all of these over the top mind games with one another. Hira didn’t do that. She just exercised in the background and was pretty much nice to everyone. She was slowly developing but then nicest out of any of the intruders. It would have been nice to see her for just a little bit longer.

Everyone else minus Dogface…good riddance. Halfwit and Siavash what the hell happened with you guys? Halfwit you got so taken down by Bea it is ridiculous. His whole cocky attitude (which I do think was slightly a joke) wasn’t very helpful. You turn into Lisa when you do crap like that. Not that Lisa is any better then him. I cannot even believe she is still in this show week in and week out. She drives me crazy as well. She thinks she is entitled to things she isn’t and can’t take what she dishes. Siavash is also kind of annoying as well. He came in cool and calm and turned into this little child who now isn’t going to nominate. I say throw him out, just nominate don’t play games like that. Rodrigo is still awful, the fact that he got so bent out of shape about the pool, tickling, and water and then went over the top just shows how immature he is. He only says disrespect and really adds nothing to the house he is worse then Lisa. Perhaps the worst of all is David who is an idiot. I thought David was fun and exciting the first week but when he became Lisa’s lackey and we realized he is extremely dumb I just found him even worse to deal with.

Even though Bea is kind of crazy in how she cannot stop manipulating situations it is really interesting how she does it. She isn’t the nicest person but if someone who is an intruder can shake the house up so much I hope she stays in until the final week.

I think at this point I would only be 100% satisfied with Dogface winning, she is sweet and may not be smart but isn’t pontificating and thinking she is smarter then she is. If Charlie or Marcus wins I could deal with it and if anyone else wins I don’t really know what to think.

I do have to give props for such a good task this week. Most of the tasks have been horrible and the whole Alice in Wonderland theme is actually really smart and really good. All of the mini tasks involved were great and this was probably the most creative task of the whole series this summer. Not a country of the week crap that they started doing.

It is also to bad that Isaac left right after Noirin. It would have been really interesting to see him interact with the group for a couple of days. However with both of them gone it was interesting seeing the dynamics in the house change once again and it will be very interesting to see how they play out.

I need to catch up with these last two weeks and then we only have two more weeks to go.

Better Off Ted Season 1 Review

I find this show to be absolutely brilliant. It isn’t perfect but I am glad I randomly watched it that one  time. I’ll say it again it is quick, quirky, smart, and clever. Plus of course funny. This show is Portia De Rossi though. She is strong in every episode she is in. Though I wasn’t the biggest fan of her magician’s assistant antics it was an interesting unintentional Arrested Development nod.

Not really sure what I can say, I think they need to keep the current dynamics for as long as possible. Ted and Linda cannot get together yet, I wouldn’t even say in season 2. They might date for a little bit but I think it needs to go horribly wrong cause it would ruin the chemistry and dynamics of the show. For example the whole flower garden at the end was a little bit to much Pushing Daisies and this show shouldn’t do cute it should do the biting humor it is so good at.

I thought all of the episodes were strong this summer the final episode had a weak point or two but I can look past that because of how usually excellent the 20 minute episodes are.

The next direction is changing up who is working with who. I would love for a Veronica episode where she has to do work with Phil and Lem. I also wouldn’t mind a few more moments of making fun of Ted. His character is so straight laced it would be funny if he got some criticism. He is to much of a people pleaser and if the other characters could harp on that it would be great.

Hard to offer to much criticism on this show, it is definitely something I am going to be picking up on DVD. Again it isn’t perfect but usually the one liners and jokes hit rather then miss. I’d love for some more Phil and Lem though. Jonathan Slavin and Michael Barrett are just as strong as De Rossi if not stronger. I think the show is Portia’s show with everyone else in it but I think those two really do give her a run for her money for the best one liners (especially in the most recent episode about Lem’s mom knowing all about Ted and Jabberwockey).

I hope it finds some sort of audience with a DVD cause otherwise I think this and next season will be it. It is a strong little show but it doesn’t have an audience.

I Survived A Japanese Game Show 2 Season Review

Summer TV continues to disappoint me this summer. Looking back at my old reviews for the first season and the premier of the second season I shouldn’t be that surprised that this sucked and honestly not watching it wouldn’t have made a difference to my life but I felt like I needed to finish what I had started.

What bogged it down, and maybe it was just me, was the games. They took up way to much time and we never got to know the contestants. Now the same could be said about last year but I feel like I knew a lot more about that cast then I ever did about this cast. I’d much rather them have a little introduction at the beginning and then a Majide game followed by the majority of the episode being about the rewards/punishments and strategy to decide who went into elimination. We hardly saw Mama-San this year and all of the advantage games almost meant absolutely nothing. I am glad they decided to go into fast forward mode at the end because I just didn’t care anymore. (They even cut out some games).

Much like the first season my interest waned as it went along, I just didn’t care anymore. The only people I truly ever liked were Megan and eventual winner Cathy. The rest of the cast (and Megan) were extremely annoying or non-entities…hell even Cathy was barely on the show.

Clearly ABC didn’t care cause they never updated the website and it won’t be coming back so this is yet another show I can write off and won’t have to see or think about again. Good concept that worked in the first season but then it became way to much about the gameshow and not about them living in Japan (which of course you can argue that the point of the show was the gameshow so maybe it wasn’t for me).

But Cathy did an amazing job, she won every single challenge that they showed on television and wasn’t eliminated in the challenge she came in 2nd place with. I also liked the small story arc of Jamie and Drew and how they both screwed up because they “loved” each other. That was maybe the only really entertaining episode.

Goodbye Majide, nice try and not to shabby for a summer reality show but if it was brought back I’d want some significant change.

Shark Tank Premiere

I was a bit wary of this show, to be honest. I didn’t know how it was going to work or if this was really that good of an idea (see what I am doing, this show is about good business ideas vs. bad business ideas). Especially since shows like this have been done before and failed. The good thing is it had Mark Burnett going for it and was based on the established Dragon’s Den from the UK.

I was actually pleasantly surprised at how engaging it was and that is basically because of the people they get and the Sharks. For a lot of these people it is do or die and they go into an easy to follow but slightly complicated negotiations with the Sharks and they need to figure out if they are getting screwed or if they can truly count on one of the sharks to help them. Each business idea was interesting and different and all of them had a unique sell.

The Sharks are pretty blunt though. They will tell people if their idea is good or if it is terrible. Most of them don’t want anything to do with the person coming in and will mock them to their face. There are a few “nice guys” but mostly all of them are pretty mean. There is one dull castmember though. Kevin Harrington. He didn’t add anything to the show and basically said he was out very early to every person.  Daymond John is slightly interesting but the show really focuses around Barbara Corcoran, Robert Herjavec, and Kevin O’Leary. Robert plays good cop to the rest of the group. He tries to be warm and inviting which also makes him suspicious. He is perhaps the friendliest guy there but he is still a business man and I think he can cut some throats like the rest of them. He and Kevin O’Leary (the bastard on the show) play off each other quite well. In fact if they cut out everyone but these two guys and Barbara I think the show would still fly. Barbara is also a bit more warm then the men but she has she-devil written all over her face and she looks like she can be a huge bitch as well. However she was quite endearing with a few of the contestants.

I don’t know if I want to really delve into each of the entrepreneurs who came in. Some were exciting and a few were jut plan sad. I guess they were all a little intimidated by the Sharks but most of them weren’t really good at negotiations or making deals usually only offering like 10% instead of 50% stake in the company. I don’t know much about business but I would think if a complete stranger is offering up their money they want a bit more stake.

I will continue to watch this show, I don’t see it lasting to long since it didn’t get great ratings and I don’t really understand what ABC was doing premiering it over a month early before the fall season begins…it might die before then.

Dirty Sexy Money: The Final Episodes

Here is a silly picture of Peter Krause they have on ABC.com, and that fact is exactly my reaction to what I just watched.

These last few episodes weren’t terrible but by the last one I remembered what problems I had with it and why this show did get canceled. Way to much Blair Underwood and Lucy Liu. I don’t know if they became the central focus because of who they were but it really slowed the show down. I didn’t care for their plotlines and it took away from what the first season was about, the crazy antics of the Darling family. In fact I felt like the Darling’s became so removed from the show that really the entire thing just centered around was the Nick/Lisa drama, Simon Elder being a bastard (and a lame one mind you), and Nola Lyons trying to get her brother back. If they didn’t try to have these “serious” plots mixed in with the crazy plots then things wouldn’t have unraveled so bad.

By plots I mean the ones that the show took seriously. I found the whole thing to be ridiculous but the writers and producers thought the audience would by into the ludicrous plots of organic gasoline and former spouses fighting on a Today Show esque talk show.  Why do I hate those plots yet I am fine with Jeremy Darling having fake amnesia or Brian moving into his half-brothers apartment instead of to a hotel? Because the latter two are completely acceptable because all of the Darlings are immature and make terrible decisions. When supposedly smart and grounded characters like Nola Lyons are stabbing people with scissors it makes it takes us out of the play world of the Darlings and makes the situation look contrived.

The first episode back “The Facts” was a terrible plot about the chauffeur telling a reporter these fake lies so that she would use him as her confidant. It was useless and all of the plots were stupid and underdeveloped.

The only episode I actually enjoyed was probably “The Convertible.” It mainly focused around Glenn Fitzgerald and Natalie Zea as they drove in a car (ridiculous yet completely Darling) to their destinations in Washington D.C. after their plane almost crashed. Karen was looking for a sperm donor and Brian was meeting up with his ex-wife. It also had some genuine moments in it and the whole episode wasn’t focused at all on those I said above. Yes there was a Lisa storyline but who cares for that.

The last two just got really muddy as they tried to wrap some story lines up and even began a few that will of course never pan out. We learned that Dutch, Nick’s father, is in fact alive she of course is a big middle finger to the audience who wanted to know which Darling did him in. Plus we hardly saw Tripp at all. Was Donald Sutherland to buy or to ashamed to be working on this show by then?

I had to watch it to see how it ended and I was disappointed. Supposedly this show had time to rewrite the ending so I don’t know where it went because things were open ended at the end and just ridiculously drawn out. Maybe if I see the second DVD on sale for 10 dollars I’ll pick it up but right now I have no plans on ever watching this again.

But if you want to watch a great first season, then pick it up, this second one is a joke.

Big Brother 2

So Big Brother 1 ended and CBS and Arnold Shapiro thought they needed to switch this up. Lets take it away from the audience and make it all about the people in the house, lets make it more cutthroat and turn it into a show like Survivor.

It worked.

It took a couple of rounds for the show to really start becoming amazing (as it usually does with Big Brother) and I was left wondering why everyone applauds this season for being the best but then around week four and week five the show hit its stride. Will lost his allies with Shannon and Mike and basically became the mastermind of the house and the Will I knew and loved from Big Brother All Stars. His strategy was basically “I am such an awful person keep me in and I won’t win anything and everyone else will look better then me and more like a threat” and people bought into it. He somehow convinced people week by week that he was worth keeping around. That people like Hardy, Krista, Bunky, and Monica were much better at this and more liked by the evicted houseguests. It really is an amazing performance by any reality show contestant and should be compared to the likes of Richard Hatch from the first season of Survivor.

It was around week 4 where emotions started playing in the game, emotions that really have only been seen in seasons 6 and season 8 of Big Brother but in a completely different way. Unlike the later seasons the house bonded and became friends in the first few weeks it wasn’t about the game but what was better for the house but when they realized that not everyone is getting to the end it became personal. Mike felt like he was being targeted, Kent decided he didn’t like anybody, Nicole ended up going crazy, and Bunky became way to emotionally involved it was sick and scary (geez I am kind of glad we didn’t see him in All Stars). I think I truly only like Will and Monica and even Monica lost me for a bit when she went off on everybody around the time Kent was about to go. So I ended up disliking a lot of these people but it was definitely a more of love to hate thing. I realized they were great characters.

Perhaps the worst person was Nicole who seemed to complain about everything. Not sure what show she was getting on but her little “This  sucks and people should feel bad for me” mentality was stupid. Yes Nicole you are on a show 24 hours of the day and it is mentally draining but do you have to be such a piss poor person?

Highlights were of course the middle of the game around the time Krista and Kent got out. The game had reached its climax and people finally realized who was who and what peoples true motives were. Usually this is where Big Brother has its shining moments before it slowly dies at the end. It was just so exciting and these people were so into it. They were in deep. I also like the two episodes with the Survivor cast members coming in, I had always wanted to see that, and it was very interesting seeing Julie Chen discussing the September 11th attacks and the producers talking to the cast members about it.

Overall an excellent season, it is a bit reality tv retro but that is part of the fun about it. It is from the early days of the genre which almost makes it refreshing then how manufactured shows are nowadays. It is a unique season with no power of veto and once you were nominated…you were nominated.  Excellent season and if you haven’t seen it and like Big Brother it is definitely something to get your hands on.