(S19E08) I know this photo might be considered sort of spoilerish for the front page. But since last week's Survivor promo showed the merge going down, I know you all know Evil Russell will attempt to work everyone. Heck, that's what the guy does. To me, he comes off akin to a snake oil salesman. Yet he seems to get people to believe his wily ways. I bet he could have sold a lot of snake oil a century back.
Even though the show has been on forever, I still enjoy my weekly dose of the new South Parks. But lately, they seem to be running out of targets or have narrowed their focus too much on one particular evil: reality television.
The season opener featured a rather nasty swipe at Disney's Jonas Brothers. The recent "Dead Celebrities" chortle-fest took a much needed pot shot at Ghost Hunters, aka, "the gayest f#*$ing show on television." And last week launched an all out attack on Discovery's Whale Wars and Deadliest Catch, particularly against Whale Wars star Paul Watson.
The show has always been a bitch to write and making every episode a satirical masterpiece is impossible without suffering a full-on breakdown. But should the show lay off reality TV and take some bolder shots at reality, which as we all know are two completely different things?
(S15E07) Poor Ericka. In tonight's episode of The Amazing Race, she didn't look quite like Miss America. Stress will do that to you. It seems each week a team or two make what might be a fatal error in the game. Oh, not something that could kill them -- just one which could lead to being Philiminated. This leg wasn't only tough on Brian and Ericka. One of the Globetrotters had to don a dress. Thankfully, it seemed to be specially tailored to fit him.
(S19E07) Even though we're down a Russell this week on Survivor, I'll continue to refer to the remaining Russell as "Evil Russell." It just somehow fits even without a confusion of Russells. However, there is just one Shambo. Although she's a good worker in camp and works hard on the challenges, that might be a good thing. One Shambo is quite enough. Perhaps she's just too nice to be on the show. Perhaps she is a bit dim. I just don't know.
(S15E06) One of the many things I learned tonight on The Amazing Race is that Dubai is probably hotter than anyplace I really want to visit. Every team was sweating; every team was complaining. At least those teams who didn't have a clue about where the Persian Gulf is or whether it's a country in and of itself will remember it now. If nothing else but for the heat. Oh. And the way cool six-story water slide into shark infested waters. At least one team will really remember that water slide.
(S19E06) Well, this was the most unusual episode of Survivor I've ever seen. Mind you, I've seen all of them since the first season. I won't get into why it was so unusual until after the jump just in case you've missed all of the hype over the injured castaway in commercials all this week. But it wasn't just the injury which made it unusual. It was all discombobulated.
(S15E05) Once again in the NYC viewing area, The Amazing Race suffered a huge delay in airing due to football. Tonight, it started an hour and fifteen minutes late. And, after all of that, the Jets lost! It's a miracle this show keeps receiving Emmy awards when the CBS Sunday night schedule is so fickle due to every sport under the sun or inside a stadium. Speaking of sports ... who are the Brinkley Tigers on Flight Time's t-shirt? They can't be Christie Brinkley's ex-husbands, can they?
(S19E05) We're into the fifth episode of Survivor and I'm still getting some of the cast mixed up. True, they're mostly on the larger Galu tribe -- the ones who keep winning, yet we only see a focus on a select few. We all know "Good" Russell and Shambo. Did you know that someone named Brett is on the Galu tribe? No. Really, I'm not kidding. He got some airtime tonight. At this point, they could stick in stunt doubles and we wouldn't know the difference!
Eliminations on The Biggest Loser are always heart-wrenching. Much as the contestants hate being away from their families, they've made the decision to try out for the show, and once they're there, the last thing they want to do is go home and back to their unhealthy habits.
Many of them truly are fighting for their life, and you just know that without the motivation of laying it all out there on TV -- not to mention the grueling paces that Bob and Jillian put them through -- some of them might never gain control over their weight.
Apparently, I've gone over to the dark side and have somehow morphed into a person who watches the E! network. I've commented on the Kardashians, Leave it to Lamas, and Chelsea Lately (which I love by the way). I've finally moved to the bottom of the barrel -- The Girls Next Door.
Here's the thing about this show. Who really knows what goes on when the cameras are turned off (or possibly, we don't want to know), but it seems like Hugh Hefner is a really nice guy. All of his girlfriends and ex-girlfriends have only good things to say about him, and they rave about how cool it is to live at the Playboy mansion.
And if you can get past the part where he has several girlfriends at the same time, and is, like, 103 years old creepily having sex with 19-year-old girls (if he can still have sex, that is), he just seems like a nice guy. The kindly grandfather girls have sex with. Oh, and he loves to scrapbook.
I caught an episode of E!'s new reality show, Leave It To Lamas, the other night. All I could think was, 'Does anyone really care about these people?' Maybe that's the point. We don't care, and thus don't mind watching them all implode.
I'm betting that a lot of people have never even heard of the Lamas family. I remember Lorenzo from Falcon Crest; now he looks like a washed-up porn star. His daughter, Shayne, was recently proposed to by Matt Grant on The Bachelor: London Calling (the engagement is off -- I'm guessing it was all done for publicity for this show).
(S15E04) You'll have to bear with me tonight. You see, I'm cranky. Yes, I'm cranky about tonight's episode of The Amazing Race. Perhaps I'd be a bit less cranky had the show started anywhere near on time. No, it's a Sunday show and here in the NYC viewing area, any sport played during the day can run over and delay the entire Sunday evening primetime line-up. On a night like tonight, delayed 45 minutes, it wreaks havoc with other shows I'd like to watch and my review writing time. But that's not the only reason I'm cranky.
(S19E04) So far we've had one of those lopsided seasons on Survivor. We've seen this happen before -- one tribe keeps winning, the other keeps right on losing. The numbers on the latter are decimated going into the merge which allows the stronger tribe to keep picking them off one by one. I prefer things a bit more evenly matched. The tribal losses affect both the strong and weak players across the board. Once a tribe keeps losing every challenge, morale goes down. Then they lose some more.
In his never ending quest to turn everything into some kind of reality series, Survivor and Apprentice creator Mark Burnett announced he will birth a new reality show baby based on the TV show Fantasy Island.
You might be thinking to yourself, "Isn't every reality show already just a real life version of Fantasy Island?" Not so fast Tattoo. Barnett's already got a trick up his sleeve. The contestants won't just be competing to have their fantasies come true. They are also competing to become the next Mr. Rourke.
I wish Ricardo Montlaban was still alive right now. He could "Khan" this whole production down with just one simple line.
(S15E03) Gee, it doesn't seem like we're already three episodes into The Amazing Race. But last week's two-hour season premiere with its two Philiminations, counted as two episodes. I'm still getting to know the teams. I think, so far, this season has more teams that I'd really like to see stick around for a while. There is only one team who really annoys me. With my luck, they'll be around for a good long while. I want them to implode. Nah, I'm not talking about Zev and Justin.
Eliminations on The Biggest Loser are always heart-wrenching. Much as the contestants hate being away from their families, they've made the decision to try out for the show, and once they're there, the last thing they want to do is go home and back to their unhealthy habits. 
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