Author Archives: Allison Lips
‘Rachael vs. Guy’: Precocious Kids Take Over
Rachael Ray and Brandon Scawthorn
After two seasons of teaching celebrities to cook, Rachael and Guy have decided to turn their sights on improving the talents of child prodigies. Unlike past seasons of Rachel vs. Guy, no one will be eliminated. Instead, each week the kids will received grades and two MVPs will be chosen, one from each team. The winner will be whoever has the highest score at the end of the competition. The grand prize is a cooking show on Food Network’s website.
In the first episode of Rachel vs. Guy: Kids Cook-off, we are introduced to the eight contestants. For Team Rachael, Hunter Zampa, Brandon Scawthorn, Hailie Thomas, and Jack Witherspoon will be competing. Team Guy’s contestants are Sydney McCoy, Cole Malouin, Alessandra Ciuffo, and Daniel Hamilton.
Even though it has only been one episode, there are already some obvious leaders. Boisterous Alessandra is a larger than life, friendly Italian-American from Queens, who would invite you over for dinner and then send you home with a ton of leftovers that you’ll love, but will be eating for a month. Hunter knows the most about food and can talk intelligently about it. He also likes to cook venison and fish because his dad is a hunter and fisherman. However, he is also probably the most likely to accidentally kill someone with his fondness for spicy foods. Cole still needs to work on his camera presences, but with a little practice he will be a mini Alton Brown. In 10 years, Cole could totally have a show where he makes food in unusual ways.
‘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.
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.
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.
Celebrating Letterman’s 20 Years on CBS
Yesterday, August 29, marked David Letterman’s 20th year hosting the Late Show on CBS. While fans are probably a little disappointed that Dave didn’t give in and do a retrospective episode or primetime special (Neither one was ever going to happen. This is Letterman we’re talking about.), there’s no reason we can’t, with the help of YouTube, take a look back at Dave’s time on CBS.
First Episode
Dave may not have gotten The Tonight Show and NBC may have tried to sue him for using their intellectual property, but that didn’t stop Dave from bringing Larry “Bud” Melman, now using his real name, Calvert DeForest, to CBS. In fact, DeForest was the first person seen on the Late Show. Unfortunately, the clip below doesn’t have DeForest’s appearance on the first show, but it does have Ed Sullivan introducing Dave.
Salvador Dali Confuses The Panelists On ‘What’s My Line?’
Whenever Salvador Dali is around, things take a turn toward the strange. While What’s My Line?‘s master of ceremonies, John Charles Daly, often finds himself tied by the limitedness of the “yes and no” question format, Dali’s appearance makes matters worse because Dali wants to say “yes” to everything. Then again, you wouldn’t expect anything less from a man who considered himself to be drugs.
Madonna’s “Like A Virgin” at the VMAs
Everyone is still talking about Miley’s performance at the MTV Music Video Awards. It’s been two days and we’re all still processing it. Did she appropriate a segment of black culture? Did Miley’s mom really approve of the things her daughter was doing with that foam finger? Yes and yes.
Instead of beating the dead horse that is Miley’s performance, Wait! What’s a Dial? has decided to take a look back at the performance that began the VMA’s reputation for crossing the line. While it was raunchy and shocking in 1984, Madonna’s “Like a Virgin” performance looks quaint in comparison to some of the acts today.
Who Can ‘Beat Bobby Flay?’
Food Network loves having chefs who aren’t famous compete against Bobby Flay. The Iron Chef America and former Throwdown! with Bobby Flay star now has a new show, Beat Bobby Flay, which is a combination of the former two shows. While Beat Bobby Flay feels derivative, so does everything that Food Network airs nowadays. Only, this time it doesn’t get boring because they took the some ideas from both Iron Chef and Throwdown! and left the unnecessary exposition on the cutting room floor.
Of course, every show begins with a segment that introduces the chefs to viewers. Since Beat Bobby Flay is only a half hour, each chef of the two chefs competing in the first round gets about a minute to describe themselves, which means no long, dramatic life stories. Life stories are limited to “this is my cooking style, this is how and why I chose it, and this is how I developed it.” It’s a cooking show. No less would be kind of odd. Any more would border on tedious and risk veering into uninteresting.
‘Double Divas’ Look For the Perfect Fit
As a woman, I have mixed feelings about Lifetime’s Double Divas. On one hand, I think it’s great that the women at LiviRae Lingerie, which is in Kennesaw, Georgia, help women of all sizes find the perfect bra and panties. On the other, it’s awkward watching women on television going through the intimate experience of trying on intimate apparel, especially when you realize that the show will appeal to the demographic that makes do with the Victoria Secret catalog because their older brother refuses to buy them Playboy.
Setting all of that aside, Double Divas is definitely worth a look. The show is in the same vein as TLC’s Say Yes to the Dress and I Found the Gown. Because the show deals with lingerie, it will not be for everyone, but it doesn’t have to be. LiviRae owners Molly Hopkins and Cynthia Richards understand that most women want bras that are functional and pretty. They get that pretty does not equal sexy and that not everyone is comfortable showing off their breasts.
Sherlock Character Blogs
Steven Moffat and Mark Gatniss like to create elaborate universes for their fanbase. This includes having the BBC create websites that exist in the worlds of both Sherlock and the fans. The following list only has official blogs for Sherlock characters. There are no weird fetish Tumblrs or LiveJournal entries about what someone would like to do with Sherlock, John, and a tub of Cool Whip.
The Science of Deduction
Sherlock’s website The Science of Deduction is identical to the one he updates in the show. It comes complete with a request for “interesting cases only please” and case files. Many of the case files direct those interested to John Watson’s blog because, according to Sherlock, people are more interested in what John has to say. Unfortunately, there is no phone number for female fans to call Benedict Cumberbatch asking for him to deduce some things.
The blog of Dr. John H. Watson
Sorry, Sherlock, but you’re right. John’s blog is more compelling. Prior to meeting Sherlock, John had nothing to write about, except for the occasional meeting with his mates. That all changed on January 29 (no year given). Since that fateful meeting, John has been blogging about his adventures with Sherlock. The posts correspond to specific Sherlock episodes, so John hasn’t update his blog in a while, but that should change when the first episode of series 3 airs on October 31 in the UK.
Wait! What's A Dial? 