Monthly Archives: September 2013
The ‘America’s Next Top Model’ Prank War
This week, America’s Next Top Model was jam-packed with tears and pranks. Marvin, the mastermind of the prank wars, plotted with Don and Jeremy. They want to throw the girls off their game, so they tape the girl’s shoes and underwear onto the walls. Kanani says “It’s a boy on girl war,” and Renee agrees by wanting to get back at the guys and show them whose boss.
Kelly Cutrone, PR maven and one of the judges on America’s Next Top Model, tells the models that they will be creating a shoot for Emerson clothing. The trend is using living photography by following the rules of “random acts of modeling.” Random acts of modeling is a term used for taking pictures of everyday tasks, but posing to make the photo look editorial. The three captains for this challenge were Corey, Kanani, and Don, since they had the top 3 photos from last week. This challenge certainly brought a lot of confusion when it came to working in groups. As Chris points out “there’s a lot of chiefs and not enough Indians.” Even though Kanani is not a real fan of Jourdan’s, Kanani felt it was best to have Jourdan on her team, because she is such a strong competitor. Jourdan apologizes to Renee and Kanani for the way she’s been acting. Kanani accepts her apology but is still keeping her eye out on her. Kanani’s team won the competition, which gives these three girls a better chance of remaining in the competition.
‘Futurama’ Series Finale: An Emotional & Impressive Send Off for the Cult Series
After fourteen years, seven seasons, four movies, a cancellation, and a rebirth, Futurama has aired is series finale on Comedy Central. It has been a long and strange journey for the Planet Express crew, but that journey has finally reached its end. For those of you who haven’t had the chance to watch it yet, I suggest you stop reading here because this review contains spoilers.
“Meanwhile” started with a trip down memory lane, as the Planet Express crew delivered a package to the Moon. This of course is an ode to the crew’s first delivery from the second episode in the series. While on the moon, Leela is sucked into space and lost forever. Fry decides he can’t live without her and decided to marry her. The Professor invents a “Time Button” that allows you to go back in time ten seconds. He uses the seemingly useless device to play a trick on Zoidberg, but Fry realizes he can use the time button for his proposal.
Fry uses the button to get the perfect ring for Leela and tells her to meet him at the top of the Vampire State Building with her answer. When she doesn’t show up, Fry attempts to jump off the building only to realize his watch was wrong and Leela was on time. Fry falls into a time loop, which has him splattering on the pavement over and over again. While attempting to save them, the Professor is killed. It isn’t until Bender comes to the rescue with his air bag. The plan backfires, as Fry is saved, but he destroys the time button leaving everyone in the world frozen in time.
Diagnosis: ‘Do No Harm’ Dead on Arrival
You may be familiar with the NBC series Do No Harm as the show that premiered to dismal ratings (the lowest in primetime history, in fact) and was mercilessly ridiculed through every form of social media imaginable. As I sat down to actually watch the pilot it was hard to force the negativity out of my mind and watch the show objectively, but I gave it my best effort and what I discovered was a show that maybe wasn’t deserving of such vehement hate. However, it was admittedly deeply flawed.
Dr. Jason Cole (Steven Pasquale) is a successful neurosurgeon who has spent the last five years keeping his evil alter-ego, Ian Price, dormant through self-medicating with a strong cocktail that puts him in a coma every night. Like volcanoes are apt to do, Ian eventually erupts and begins wreaking havoc on Cole’s life. I can appreciate a good Jekyll and Hyde story as much as the next person but what I can’t appreciate is a story that is basically implausible from the very beginning. The split personality is attributed to Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), which is a real medical condition.
How Will the New ‘Dancing with the Stars’ Cast Do?
In less than two weeks, 12 new celebrities will head out onto the Dancing with the Stars dance floor. Airing September 16th, celebrities begin to vie for the coveted trophy and bragging rights of Dancing with the Stars Champion. Every year, fans get excited when the announcement comes on Good Morning America around 8:30 am. The answer to “Who will appear on the next season of Dancing with the Stars?” is finally here.
Former NY Jets Wide-Reciever Keyshawn Johnson will join the seventeenth season. Dancing With the Stars typically has one or two athletes on the show each season. They usually become top contenders and are entertaining to watch. He might be at an advantage compared to the other contestants because of the fancy footwork he had to do on a daily basis. Johnson’s fast paced agility and personality will certainly help him out with swift and energetic dance routines.
The other male celebrities on the list are Jack Osbourne, High School Musical’s Corbin Bleu, comedian Bill Engvall, Bill Nye the Science Guy, and Pretty Little Liars bad boy Brant Daughtery. Corbin Bleu is the only male contest who has previous experience dancing, so it will be interesting to see how the other men keep up with him and Johnson.
‘My Big Fat Revenge’ Is Big on the Revenge
My Big Fat Revenge sends many mixed messages. The show enables big women to lose weight and get revenge on exes, family members, or anyone who has ever made fun of them for their weight. While it is great that the women receive the help they need to get healthy, the fact that they have to get healthy before they can tell their tormentors off is cruel in it’s own way.
The first episode introduced the audience to Jen and Tamar, whose stories are unfortunately way too common. Jen met her ex-boyfriend through a website specifically for “big beautiful women.” Even though ex-boyfriend was looking for a “big beautiful woman,” he was still ashamed to be seen with her in public. He went as far as asking Jen to lose weight and die her hair, so he could date a skinny blonde chick. Tamar’s problem was her mother, who would call her daughter, a “tub of lard” and say she had a “tire belly.” Tamar had to deal with the jabs at her weight throughout her entire childhood. Understandably, both women wanted to get revenge, but they were sent to Los Angeles to lose weight first.
In Los Angeles, Jen and Tamar spent three months exercising. Every day they were in the gym for six hours. This was shown with the standard weight-loss show montage, but since My Big Fat Revenge isn’t really a show about weight loss it was a quick segment. During those three months, Jen lost 68 pounds and Tamar lost 46 pounds.
5 Soul Crushingly Sad Fry Moments from “Futurama”
Ten years after creating one of the most recognized television families of all time, Matt Groening and company introduced us to a new kind of animated series. Futurama had a few similarities to The Simpsons. They both aired Sunday nights on Fox. The type of design and animation were similar. They even contained the same pop-culture referencing humor that has become synonymous with current generation comedies, such as South Park and v. Although they shared a few similarities, Futurama was very different from The Simpsons.
The Simpsons was and will always be one of Fox’s most beloved and successful series. Futurama may never reach that status, but it will go down as one of the funniest and original programs that Fox had the audacity to cancel after only four (almost five) seasons. Luckily after a successful string of straight to DVD releases, Comedy Central resurrected the cult series for four more seasons.
With the final episode airing this week, I thought it would be appropriate to revisit some of the things that made Futurama the under-appreciated heartwarming show that it is. Starting with some of the soul crushingly sad moments from the shows impressive seven-season run that spanned over fourteen years.
The series finale of Futurama airs on Comedy Central this Wednesday at 10 pm
5. When Fry is Late to Dinner with Leila Because of Time Travel
Season 6, Episode 7: “The Late Phillip J. Fry”
Fry never has any luck with time travel. One of the latest examples was in last season’s episode “The Late Phillip J. Fry.” Professor Farnsworth invents a time machine and before a date with Leela for her birthday and Fry, Bender, and the Professor end up going on an adventure through time. Unfortunately for Fry, the Professor fails to invent away to go back in time, only forward. They continue to travel further in time until they kind find a year where backwards time travel exists.
Back in the present, Leela is stood up by Fry, and is never seen again. The audience sees a dismal future that does not contain Fry, Bender, and the Professor. Leela’s future is successful, but loveless. She is mad at Fry for leaving and not explaining why. Years have passed a birthday card appears out of nowhere and hits future Leela in the face. The card is from Fry and it explains why he disappeared. Leela goes back to the restaurant and leaves a message for Fry to hopefully see in the future. Fry sees the heartfelt message left by Leela and says, “I made it, Leela. Sorry I’m a billion years late.”
Fry, Bender, and the Professor are unable to find away back to their time. They travel to the end of time and watch the destruction of the universe, only to realize the universe keeps restarting in a non-stop loop. By going further in time, they could get back to the time before they left. They come back in time to kill and replace themselves (avoiding a time paradox, according to the Professor). Fry gets to go on his date with Leela, and everything is right with the world.
David Letterman Plays the Joker in “The Riddlers”
In 1977, David Letterman was still a struggling standup comedian trying to break into television, which is the only way to explain why Letterman would ever take part in the mess of a pilot that is The Riddlers. Unless you’re a fan of David Letterman, perpetual b-list game show guests from the 70s, or things that are so bad, they’re good, The Riddlers is not worth watching.
The Riddlers‘s pilot has many things wrong with it. The most obvious are several format flaws. First, there’s the fact that Letterman is almost useless. The contestants are reading the riddles to other members of their team. The Riddler‘s doesn’t need a host and it doesn’t deserve on as good as Letterman. He exists solely to read the rules and repeat questions that have already been read. While it is necessary to repeat questions every now and then, no game show needs a dedicated echoer.
As if a built in redundancy isn’t bad enough, the starting team is almost guaranteed to win. The problem isn’t that the object of the game is to answer 9 riddles correctly. It’s that the losing team from the previous game starts the new one and keeps control of the game until they get an incorrect answer. It’s entirely possible for a really good team to win the game without the other team ever answering a question. The only reason that doesn’t happen in the pilot is because Joyce Bulifant isn’t too bright, which she has also demonstrated multiple times on Match Game, so it’s not like she was having a bad day.
“Breaking Bad’s” ‘Rabid Dog’ Is All Over The Place
When has Jesse versus Walt not had a presence in Breaking Bad? Sure, it hasn’t always been at the magnitude it’s at now – it feels like it’s been forever since the worst thing we saw Walt do was call Jesse an idiot – but it’s always been there. It’s been growing in severity as each season has passed, from some verbal disagreements to several physical fights, all hopefully building up to one last confrontation. “Rabid Dog” set the scene for the final showdown; it just took awhile for it to get there. The last few episodes have flown by. I find myself looking at the clock and thinking, “No way an hour has already passed. It just started!” This episode, though, was a little slower, starting with Walt’s faulty gas pump lie.
Before I get to that, the opening scene needs a little love. I’m pretty sure I gnawed off all of my fingernails as Walt moved through his gasoline-soaked house searching for Jesse and discovered he was gone. Walt’s cover-up for the gasoline smell kind of undid all of that. It wasn’t poor writing or a bad transition. It’s that Walt’s elaborate lies have become so tiresome that they’re disrupting the course of the show. The bigger the lie, the more he exaggerates this sense of earnestness, and even Walt Jr. picked up on it. I have to admit, I gasped when he asked his dad to tell the truth for once. I thought for sure this was going to be the moment he started to figure everything out. My hopes were dashed when he started talking about Walt’s cancer, which he gladly played into. Skyler seemed to know almost immediately and confronted him about it once the family settled in at its temporary hotel home.
David Frost Dies at 74
As a twentysomething American, my exposure to Sir David Frost is limited to little more than the Frost/Nixon movie. Since nothing I write will do the man justice, I’ll let BBC News do things properly. You can watch one of the interviews, where they talk about the Watergate scandal, that inspired Frost/Nixon below.
Wait! What's A Dial? 