TVSquad

(S05E03) Three episodes in and while Top Chef has been fun with really good challenges and interesting food, something is missing. Or maybe it just hasn't simmered to the surface yet. I'm talking about conflict, drama, hatred. Everybody is just too damn happy with each other.

I mean, last night the only nasty interaction was one chef flipping a finger at the other -- which Bravo actually blurred out, give me a break -- and Jamie commenting that she's fed up with Dave. Compared to previous seasons, that's pretty tame. Turn up the heat, guys and gals. Let's see that "too many cooks spoil the broth" energy.

(S02E08) "You already broke my heart, is it necessary to shoot it as well?" - Chuck to Jill

It must be a Thanksgiving thing because Monday night TV was tremendous. And as I mentioned in my post of thanks, I'm grateful to my DVR because in addition to enjoying this Chuck episode, I also gorged myself on How I Met Your Mother, Big Bang Theory, Two and a Half Men and Samantha Who, all of them excellent installments. How lucky can you get?

Well, if you're Chuck, you only get so much luck. Of all the girls in all the world, why did his first love, the lovely Jill, have to turn out to be a spy? Make that a bad girl spy.

Some of you might be asking, yeah, Richard Simmons is going to be on The Late Show With David Letterman tonight, so what? Well, you didn't see what happened on the show six years ago.

The diet and exercise maven was on Letterman's show around Thanksgiving, and he was dressed as a turkey, basically acting like Richard Simmons always acts, only this time dressed as poultry. Well, his antics really got to Dave this time and Letterman kinda blew up at him (I think Simmons might have grabbed Dave or hurt his back somehow), shooting him with a fire extinguisher several times and telling him to get the f**k out several times (CBS bleeped the words, of course). Dave has talked about the incident many times since then, and has even showed the clip several times. Tonight, Simmons returns to the show for the first time since the incident. I wonder what they'll talk about? (The pic on the right is from a different Simmons appearance on the show.)

On a related note, if you'd like to hear Simmons swear, check out this video.

(S02E08) Chris, quite rightly I believe, points out that Thanksgiving is one of the best holidays ever, because all you do the entire day is eat and sleep. Of course, that's only if you're not the one waking up with the chickens to prepare a feast for the entire family.

When I was growing up, we always had Thanksgiving at my grandparents' house, and grandma pretty much ruled the kitchen, not because it was expected of her, but because she wanted it that way. The kitchen was her domain, and most Thanksgivings it was just her and the other women, and sometimes me because I would get bored easily and want to do something to kill time.

Göre Yakup. Well, that's a rough translation of what According to Jim would be in Turkish. And, you're asking, why the hell would we want to say According to Jim in Turkish (or English, for that matter)? That's because the long-running ABC sitcom will be reversioned for Turkish audiences.

Now, you're probably asking yourself, "What the hell does reversioning mean?" First, stop swearing. Second, as far as we can tell, reversioning is when the rights to a show are bought by a foreign producer, who then develops the show for their own audiences. We've done it here plenty of times for shows like All in the Family, Three's Company and The Office (all British imports) and international producers have done it for American shows like Friends. In this instance, according to an article in Variety, Jim is being reversioned by Turkish producer Medyapim for local broadcaster ATV. Medyapim has already formatted another ABC sitcom, the recently canceled Hope & Faith, for its local market.

Garet "I've only been singing in front of my turkey" Johnson did not make the Top 24 on American Idol. But that hasn't stopped anyone from getting famous off the competition, has it? Despite living in a town of four people and only having turkeys to hear him sing, Garet does have internet access and therefore, he has a webpage. There's not much to it yet, except the promise that "this is only the beginning", and a lot of spelling, grammatical, and punctuation errors.

He was a really sweet and cute cowboy but I think he needs to take the judges' advice and get some singing lessons. He's young enough to spend a year improving and then return next year. Which is better, Garet? Fifteen minutes of fame or an entire season on American Idol? Even your turkey could figure that one out.

Two TV chefs in Britain, including Gordon Ramsay of Hell's Kitchen, got into a bit of trouble recently for showing animals being slaughtered on the air. Well, it seems they didn't actually show it in gory, graphic detail, but on chef Jamie Oliver's show, Jamie's Great Escape, he did slit a lamb's throat. On Ramsay's show, a slaughterman was brought in to kill a few turkeys with a stun gun. Both shows resulted in fifty-seven complaints, but Ofcom maintained that the killing of the animals was done in a responsible and humane manner.