Author Archives: Marissa Roth
‘The Biggest Loser’: Using Your Fear as Fuel
After seeing Ruben fall below the red line, the red team needed to push themselves even harder in order to remain in the competition. Within the first five minutes, the contestants met up with Alison Sweeney at a diner for their next upcoming challenge. She told the groups that they needed to answer questions regarding obesity in the workplace. The losing team, which ended up being the white team, would have to work at the diner for an entire week in addition to finding time to work out as well.
While the red team and blue team were working hard at the gym, the white team was working hard at the diner. Jillian asked where everyone on the white team was and Bobby mentioned the challenge at dinner and how the white team lost. She was beyond furious and she never felt “so cursed in her entire life.” Jillian felt like this was a joke and that she was being punked. While Jillian needed to take a breather, Dolvett was there to fight for his team. His goal is to give his team members a winning attitude. The best advice he gave last night was to “use your fear as fuel.” Rachel, who has constantly been the biggest loser on the red team, pointed out that demons will always be with you, but you need to use that fear as a fuel for change.
Glee’s “Previously Unaired Christmas”
If you thought last week’s episode was at an all time low, Glee puts it all out there for their Christmas episode. Glee not only has sexy elves costumes, but the show has sexist and racist remarks as well. The show certainly wants to make a statement for the fall finale. However, those probably weren’t the things the writers wanted everyone talking about.
In this episode, Sue Syvlester holds a contest that has McKinley High students decorating a Christmas tree. The one rule is that it needs to be eco-friendly. The first place price is a plastic crystal angel “that a twelve year old Filipino made.” Tina and Sam are on the glee club’s decorating committee. Tina takes this contest very seriously because, as always, she wants it about her. Prom queen wasn’t enough.
While Tina continues to stress about the tree, Artie mentions that the nativity scene got defaced and vandalized. The nativity scene gets defaced with swastikas and the baby Jesus is even found in Figgins’ chimney. Figgins informs the glee club that he wants them to perform a live nativity scene. Coach Beiste wants Jake to play Joseph because “he is a tan Jew.” All of the girls want to be the Virgin Mary, except Kitty. While all of the girls audition, Kitty sits this one out. Not only is she angry about the girls’ performance, but she doesn’t think “a Chinese person should play the Virgin Mary.” Marley corrects her with “I’m pretty sure she’s Korean.” Even though Kitty puts on a hard shell, she showcases her vulnerability in this episode. She tells Marley that she feels Marley doesn’t deserve to play the Virgin Mary because of her promiscuous ways.
‘The Biggest Loser’ Sends Two Contestants Home
At the weigh-in, affter Holley Mangold’s heartbreaking elimination, Alison Sweeney told the teams during that one more person will be going home. That person will get to go home and workout with their trainer. A wheel determined who would go home. Jay hoped the wheel lands on him because he’s been feeling homesick lately. When it does land on him, he’s excited, but Jillian was pissed off because she’s leaving her other teammates behind.
Once they left the ranch, Jillian saw Jay’s home state of Missouri and connected with him on a whole different level. She wanted to see what makes him tick and what makes him so special. Not only is losing weight hard physically, but also mentally. He already lost 78 pounds, but had to make some sacrifices. Jillian fears that going home won’t be good for him, especially since Jay’s weight was the determining factor on whether the white team stays for another week. In 100 degree heat, Jillian had Jay running around in the barn doing intense workout regiments. It’s a great tool to use because it provided an alternative to the gym.
‘Glee’: “The Puppet Master”
Glee was one of the few shows that aired a new episode on Thanksgiving. If you thought the tryptophan was getting to you or you had too many glasses of wine at dinner, fear not. It was probably “The Puppet Master,” which is Glee‘s trippiest episode to date. “The Puppet Master” had fantasy sequences and puppets that looked liked the characters.
The episode mainly revolved around Blaine, who is considered to be the puppet master of the New Directions. He doesn’t realize how controlling he is, but the other glee club members can see it. The glee club feels they don’t get a say in any of the decision making process because it’s all about Blaine’s ideas. This is not a democracy in the rest of the clubs eyes. Tina goes as far as to compare the glee club to North Korea. However, Blane feels that no one is appreciating his leadership skills. After sitting in the back corner of the choir room, Blaine starts falling asleep and begins dreaming of the casts’ puppet counterparts. As if this was a Sesame Street episode, Blaine sings “You’re My Best Friend” with the puppets. Seriously, why can’t Glee just grow up? If anything, Glee should have used the puppets for Avenue Q songs. Avenue Q is meant to be a puppet show for adults.
It’s sad to say, but Blaine’s becoming the new Rachel Berry. Rachel was a very prominent character throughout the show, but has been kind of hidden in the background lately. Rachel and Blaine are the kind of characters you love to hate because everything revolves around them. It makes them sound even more selfish than they are. Quite frankly, the show shouldn’t be called Glee anymore cause Blaine has been taking over. It should be called now “The Blaine Anderson Show,” just like it used to feel like “The Rachel Berry Show.”
‘Dancing With The Stars’: Who Won The Mirror Ball Trophy?
After 11 weeks of competition, Dancing with the Stars has crowned this season’s champion. The two-night finale was action packed with memorable performances from previous contestants of season 17, musical guests, fusion dances and even creative freestyles.
In Monday night’s episode, contestants had to deal with three dance rounds: the judges pick, an intense freestyle, and a samba relay to gain extra points on their scores. For round one, the judges chose the dances they felt the contestants can best improve on, which also gave the judges a chance to sit in on the contestants studio practice and help out.
Bill Engvall had to dance the Viennese Waltz again. This time to Billy Joel’s “She Always A Woman To Me, which gave the performance a real romantic elegant feel. Even though his dance wasn’t that much of an improvement, he was still very entertaining to watch. Carrie Ann, Bruno, and Len didn’t expect him to make it as far as he did because he isn’t the same caliber as the other competitors. His first set of scores totaled 24/30 and his samba routine was mediocre compared to the others. Sadly, Bill came in last place, which only gave him an extra two points on his score.
Glee’s Billy Joel Tribute
After last week’s twerking craze, Billy Joel is probably the best thing for getting back on track. The Billy Joel songs chosen throughout the episode complimented the story line and didn’t seem like a forced attempt to seem cool. Last night, the show was about the characters’ joys and fears of the future.
The episode starts with Sam and Blaine heading to New York to visit Rachel, Kurt and Santana in hopes for career advice. They believe that “New York is the city where dreams come true.” Blaine hopes to get into NYADA and Sam at Hunter University. Sam hopes that his impressions and his Channing Tatum Male Stripper Scholarship award will come in handy in the long run. Ever since, Sam was a young kid, his dream job was to become a male model because he was not a good student. Since Hunter University was a no go, Sam decides to pursue his modeling dream by meeting up with a tough talent agency named “Bichette.” Bichette, played by none other than Tyra Banks, gives Sam a harsh reality of what it takes to make it into the industry.
‘The Biggest Loser’: Remember Who You Are
The 15th season of The Biggest Loser is in it’s sixth week and we continue to see that the contestants’ hard work pays off. While Reuben Studdard did return to the ranch this week, the episode started with Alison Sweeney leaving the contestants DVDs and a card that said “Remember Who You Are.” This was an opportunity for the contestants to view their old selves and reflect on the actions that sent them to The Biggest Loser Ranch, which was a wake up call for many of the contestants. Quite frankly, the contestants don’t want to be that person anymore and most of them have changed significantly.
After a shocking revelation last week involving Jillian Michaels giving caffeine supplements to her players the week before without doctor’s permission, the weigh in was invalidated and Reuben Studdard was allowed to return to the ranch. He was grateful for the second chance to change his life. It was also clear the contestants missed him. Tanya and the rest of the red team agreed that “Reuben has a way of lifting everyone up.” Reuben’s return boosted the moral of the red team. They felt that the family was back together.
‘Dancing With The Stars’: The Semifinals
It’s hard to believe that Dancing with the Stars is nearing the end of this season. This week, the challenge was to perform two different dances to the same song: one to the instrumental and the other one to the original. Not only are the dances getting more intricate, but the judges decided to bring back Dancing with the Stars’ bad boy, Maksim Chmerkovskiy, who is known for his opinionated ways and not always agreeing with the judges. It was interesting to see Maksim’s take on the remaining competition.
Leah Remini’s dances for this week were the paso doble and the tango to Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance.” Her first dance was all about taking charge, but she’s still having trouble getting into character mode. Her dance partner expresses most of the emotion. Maks said it best “he’s looking crazy and you’re not.” Overall, it was neat and precise, but this is semifinals, you have to take more risks than Leah did. Her argentine tango was very romantic. However, it was very slow. The acoustic version of the song truly helped set the mood for these two people. The judges still feel that Leah needs to step up her game if she hopes to make it to next week’s finals. Leah’s dance total 65/80.
‘Glee’: “The End of Twerk”
Sadly, Glee‘s story lines are coming directly from the headlines. They are pandering to a younger, pop culture savvy media demographic. The episodes of Glee, I remember seeing in the early days are a lot different than what’s being produced today. Last night, Glee paid tribute to this year’s most talked about hot button issue: Miley Cyrus. The episode was all about rebelling, twerking, and the freedom to express yourself. When I first heard about the episode, I said “Oh god, this is going to be a train wreck.” I was right.
Everyone has those days when you feel like breaking out in dance when no one is looking, but nowadays its very easy to get caught. Blaine happens to get caught twerking because Tina recorded it and showed everyone in the glee club. He becomes embarrassed, but Mr. Schuester feels that this is what they need to get into nationals. Mr. Schuester feels that this dance craze is certainly “not traditional, but its envelope pushing.” Soon after, he begins to break out in song and dance to Robin Thicke’s hit song “Blurred Lines.” The students seemed to be enjoying themselves by sexing it up and making it look inappropriate.
Jilliam Michaels Made a Mistake on ‘The Biggest Loser: Second Chances’
Week after week, contestants continue to amaze themselves with their newer, shrinking bodies. Not only are the workouts getting tougher, but seeing the people get eliminated is getting even harder. Last week, American Idol winner Reuben Studdard got the boot because he fell below the red line. A lot of people felt, that it wasn’t his time to go just yet. Everyone deserves to be here and change their life around. That is, after all, why the show is called “The Biggest Loser: Second Chances.”
At the beginning of this weeks episode, Alison Sweeney brought Chef Sam Cass, who is the head chef for the Obama family. He came to the ranch to address the MyPlate initiative. The my plate talks about nutrition and stresses that it’s important to have a good balance of fruit, vegetables, proteins etc. Alison told the contestants that they have a thirty minute cooking challenge to prepare a healthy nutritious meals for the judges, who were the three Biggest Loser Kid Ambassadors from last season: Bingo, Sunny, and Lindsay. The blue team once again rose to the challenge and won once again with a chicken quesadilla, fresh fruit as a dessert, and kale chips on the side. Not only was the food delicious, but Bingo, who hates vegetables, seemed to really enjoy the quesadilla.
Wait! What's A Dial? 