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(S04E14) "My goal tonight is to make Chef Ramsay second guess the fact that he got rid of me." - Jen

Oh Jen, just when we had started to forget you, you come back with the nasty attitude and the chip on your shoulder. Like Mary Tyler Moore, you can turn the world on with your smile.

This is part one of the finale, where final contestants Petrozza and Christina design their restaurants and have to complete a service with some of the eliminated contestants. The returning players are Jen, Louross, Bobby, Corey, Matt, and Ben. Not sure why these contestants are the ones who return, other than they're the most controversial. They're not all the most recent rejects, because Roseann would be in the mix if that was the case and not Ben.

I have mixed feelings about these contestants coming back, which I'll explain after the jump.

(S05E03) "There isn't a single person in Santiago my size." - overweight Craig, walking around in his underwear

So tonight I decided that instead of just looking at all of the players equally to see if they were the Mole, I would focus on the two players that I have narrowed it down to (I know, a little early, but you have to start looking early). So I paid attention to everything that Mark and Victoria said, did, ate, wore, and didn't do. And you know what? I'm as lost as I was in the opening scene of the first episode. OK, not that confused, because after tonight's third person was eliminated, I guess mathematically I have a better idea of who the Mole is or isn't. But I know that it's not easy to figure this out.

I also know that I don't want to see Craig walking around in his underwear ever again.

(S04E11) "I've never cooked spaghetti in my life, but I've heard about it." - sexy cooking school student

I'm not sure if Gordon Ramsay and FOX planned it this way, but I think they invented a new reality show tonight: The Real Housewives of Hell's Kitchen. One of the challenges has a bunch of scantily-clad women teamed up with one of the contestants to make a meal within 45 minutes. The kitchen was all about boobs and boiling lobsters.

And I think that last sentence will give you a clue as to who went home tonight.

Some of our readers have pointed out in the comments section of the Hell's Kitchen episode reviews that Chef Gordon Ramsay shouldn't pick any of the contestants to be the winner, because they aren't talented enough. I think some of them clearly aren't executive chef level yet, though I think some of them could be away from the weird pressures of reality TV. The winner of the show gets $250,000 and the executive chef job at the new London West Hollywood. Unlike other seasons, this winner will actually work as the head of one of Ramsay's own restaurants, so there is a lot riding on this.

But what if he didn't pick a winner?

(S04E10) "I have a migraine...I have a migraine...I have a migraine." - Matt, who had a migraine

I worked with a couple of people like Matt in my restaurant days. Fine when things were perfect, but deep down inside there was something wrong with them, and it came out in scary, whiny, immature ways. Tonight we saw the side of Matt that was only hinted at in previous weeks. But will his cooking skills save him in the end?

If you've been moaning over the lack of series centered on gay puppets, I have some good news for you.

Last November, I told you about a project from Jim Henson Studios called Tinsel Town (or Tinseltown, everyone seems to spell it differently). The series features two gay Muppets, a bull named Samson Knight and a pig named Bobby Vegan, who adopt a human child.

Eric Drysdale is a writer and comedian most will recognize as the stage manager "Bobby" on The Colbert Report (see Bobby as a leprechaun in the clip at the end of this post). Drysdale is also a writer on the show and previously wrote for The Daily Show. In addition, he's performed several times at the UCB Theater and also played with Tammy Faye Starlite, a satirical country band.

However, none of those credits could answer a question that's been nagging at me ever since I first saw Eric/Bobby appear on The Colbert Report: where had I seen this person before? After a bit of Web searching, I finally solved the mystery: in 2000, he appeared on an episode of Premium Blend singing "This Rubik's Cube is Driving Me Crazy," a song he performed under the stage name "Crazy Davis" according to this thread.

(S11E05) In this episode, we learn that Hank's cousin is none other than Dusty Hill, bass player for ZZ Top. If any other show had attempted to do this kind of celebrity crossover, it would have seemed trite, but this episode wasn't so much about Dusty's celebrity status as it was about Hank wanting to keep his family as far away from the glitz and shallowness of the rock and roll lifestyle (Bobby especially).

Since the reality TV genre began, the term "reality" has been given an extra meaning. The truth is, if "reality" shows were actually "real" they'd be some of the most uninteresting shows on television: entire episodes would consist of nothing but people sitting around doing absolutely nothing, people would wonder in and out of frame, and sometimes conversations would be completely inaudible, because in reality, nobody feels the need to project for an invisible audience. I also imagine there would be a lot more nose picking and butt scratching.

(S11E02)

Dale [in the sewer]: It's kinda spooky down here. Do you think poop has ghosts?

This episode actually reminded me a little bit of Tom Goes to the Mayor with its focus on a city council being taken for suckers by two guys who really don't have the city's best interest in mind. Mostly, I just found it interesting how different shows can tackle the same issues in wildly different ways.

(S11E01) What's this? A new season of King of the Hill has begun and they're actually going to air the episodes in a decent timeslot? It's not going to be buried early in the evening where it will be easy to forget about? What hath we done to appease the Gods of TV that they have favored us with this gift? I don't know, but I'm glad to see this series get the timeslot it deserves.

Muppet News Flash, my preferred source for the latest Muppet news, reports that the Jim Henson company is shopping around a new series to various networks called Tinseltown. The series will focus on a gay couple (a pig named Bobby and a bull named Samson) who live together and adopt a twelve year old human child. Despite a premise that some might considered a bit too controversial for a Muppet series, it's good to keep in mind that the Muppets have never been above a bit of ribald humor. Also, according to Brian Henson the series is simply a chance for the puppeteers to do something they find funny, and those who have seen the five-minute presentation tape agree the series is actually very tasteful. Well, I hope it isn't too tasteful, it wouldn't be a Henson project without some of that trademark zaniness. There's no way to know at this point if the show will ever see the light of day, but I must say the description alone has piqued my interest.

Great news, King of the Hill fans: after a long wait FOX has finally announced that the eleventh season of the animated series will kick off on January 21 at 7:30 pm. The tenth season finale ended with Lucky and Luanne getting engaged and Luanne becoming pregnant, but according to the press release the eleventh season opener will focus mainly on Animal Control trying to rescue Bobby's pet snake from the toilet and causing a city-wide panic in the process. King of the Hill, despite always being stuck in a timeslot where even fans like myself can sometimes forget about it, is still consistently smart and funny even after being on the air for over a decade. I would love to see it bumped ahead into the primetime lineup with The Simpsons and the rest of FOX's animated shows, but I can deal with the lousy timeslot as long as FOX keeps bringing it back.

The Brady Bunch (and The Partridge Family) were weekly rituals in my house when I was a kid. My sister and I would get a huge bag of candy down at the corner store and come home and watch both shows on Friday night.

So it was interesting to see what Cousin Oliver, aka Robbie Rist, is up to these days. As fans of The Brady Bunch know, he was brought on to the show later in its run to add something to the show. I don't know, maybe a cute factor or just shake things up a bit. But all he did was annoy fans, and many people see this as a big "Jump the Shark" moment. Even Rist himself says he has that web site to thank for renewed interest in his career.

Check out what Rist looks like now. Quite a change.

[via TV Tattle]

(S01E04) "The End of the Whole Mess" is one of my favorite Stephen King short stories for two reasons. One, it's written by a protagonist who is slowly losing his mind as the story progresses, much like an earlier short story of his titled "Survivor Type" (from the Skeleton Crew collection). The other reason I like it so much is that it's very unstereotypically King. It's a very touching and very human story about misplaced good intentions, those same intentions that pave the road to Hell, as the cliche goes.

In the story, the teller is Howie Fornoy, a freelance writer. In the TV version he's a documentary filmmaker and he tapes his final moments on Earth rather than writing about them, which makes sense, this being a television episode after all. Howard is played by Ron Livingston, and his younger brother, Bobby, is played by Henry Thomas. The two brothers are intelligent kids with intelligent parents, but Bobby is especially so. Howie describes him as a kind of wandering genius, someone like Da Vinci or Einstein flittering from one interest to the next like a compass trying to find True North. Bobby finally finds his True North when he and a team of researchers discover a town in Texas called La Planta where the water contains proteins not found anywhere else, including one only found in the human brain. It turns out the water acts as a kind of "calmative" that renders the entire town and its people completely passive and nonviolent.