Zoinks! Life and work got in the way there for a while. Sorry for the lack of posts for the past few days. Let's play catch-up, shall we?
First up, The Amazing Race. We're down to the final three teams as of last night -- Tyler and James, Rob and Kimberly and Lyn and Karlyn. If you had told me at the beginning of the season that for the first time ever, a two-woman team would make the final three, I definitely wouldn't have predicted Lyn and Karlyn, but they are doing pretty darned well late. They finished in the top two by minutes two legs in a row. Sure, they're tired and they're bickering, and they took getting yielded by the beauty queens really poorly last episode even though they planned to be the yielders if they got there first. I'm not sure I'm rooting for them, exactly, but I'm impressed they keep on trucking. Rob and Kimberly I could do without, especially their screaming and giving up constantly. James and Tyler have been handling all the stresses pretty well. Sure, as Lyn and Karlyn pointed out, they get a little emotional here and there, but generally, they've been keeping it together.
I'm surprised Dustin and Kandice are out. They will say that they were gunned for because they were so competitive, but it was also because at times they were unnecessarily underhanded around the other teams, and rarely did it gain them any time on the teams. The only thing it did was engender distrust, which definitely did not work out for them in the end.
That final episode is always a doozy, so keep an eye out this Sunday to see who brings home the $1 million prize.
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Speaking of $1 million prizes, how about that Survivor? Jonathan flipped yet again, but he was given little choice by Yul, who would have voted him out had he not joined with the Aitu-ans. So the former Raro-ites were furious, and then everyone got furious after Jonathan acted like a selfish jerk at the reward challenge, an auction at which he won an insane amount of food and rubbed it in everyone's faces (albeit not literally). It got really ugly when Adam, Candace and Parvati were huddled in the tent, and everyone else started eating without telling them, leaving them with no fish. This carried over to an insane tribal council where everything came out in the open. It seemed like there was a chance that everyone was going to flip on Jonathan, but instead Candace went home, after making out with Adam in front of God, her teammates, Jeff Probst and the jury after the votes came in. I suspect Jonathan isn't long for this game, but I've been thinking that for a long, long time, so who knows?
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VH1 aired a marathon of repeats of America's Next Top Model this weekend, gearing up for the finale on Wednesday. I never end up seeing the show when it's on network TV, and it never fails that I get dragged into repeats toward the end. I don't love the show, but I love photography, and you can't see the shoots and the results of the shoots without seeing most of the episode. So yeah, that's my excuse.
It's just such a strange show. Real models get into the business early, so to have all these 18-to-23-year-olds supposedly getting their start just makes it seem even less accurate. But, as usual, there has been drama and personality conflicts and other assorted craziness to keep people tuning in. Wednesday we'll see who the big winner is. (Because we've seen oh so much of the previous six winners!)
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I'm all caught up with The Real World: Denver, which just makes me want to tear my hair out over the state of youth today, which makes me feel 947 years old instead of just pushing 30. But seriously, as of the end of last week's episode, the kids had been in the house for less than 48 hours and already Colie had made out with Alex, who promised to meet her in her room for more making out but instead had a fling with Jenn, who had already made out with Brooke in front of Tyrie and who didn't want to tell Colie about Alex, but Colie saw her hickey while talking to her in the shower. That doesn't even get into the part where Brooke basically forced Davis out of the closet after he had chosen to room with Stephen because they go to the same church, but Stephen thinks homosexuality is wrong.
It's all ever so classy. People say London was a boring season, but I really liked seeing the interplay between the roommates, who had jobs besides making out with one another. Even Jay, who sat around a lot of the time because his work visa was all messed up, was compelling because, having written and staged a play while still in high school, he was dealing with becoming a very small fish in a giant pond.
I've said it before, but I will say it again: Real World has turned into a puppy mill for creating Real World-Road Rules Challenge contestants. That's its only purpose. Sick.
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More classy and less exploitative than I thought it would be is Beauty & the Geek. It's being rerun on MTV right now in anticipation of the third season, which supposedly starts next month. It's billed as a social experiment (exec produced by Ashton Kutcher) in which eight beauties and eight geeks team up in pairs and compete for $250,000. There are certainly humiliating moments, but generally the guys seem to gain a lot of confidence and the women seem to realize that there is more to life than looking cute. That sounds like a win-win to me. I hope the show keeps that innocence about it as it continues. Apparently, we'll see next month.
