Category Archives: Reality TV
‘Dancing with the Stars’: First Week Jitters
Mondays are my new favorite night when it comes to watching television. No it’s not Monday Night Football for me, but it’s something else that deals with a lot of technique and precision. Season 17 of the Dancing with the Stars started last night on ABC. It was larger than life. Opening the show, the professional dancers came out in style. Having a limo, red carpet, and paparazzi snapping away photos, the choreography was brilliant in how it introduced the new cast the new cast members. The judges and the hosts even got in on the action and danced in the opening act.
Brant Dougherty and Peta Murgatroyd
Pretty Little Liars star Brant Dougherty was the first celebrity to take the dance floor. His partner is Peta Murgatroyd. Their first dance was the cha cha. He said he decided to do the show because he knows how much his mom loves the show. They dance to “Blurred Lines” and a lot of booty shaking was going on. The judges all agreed that he is very easy on the eyes and the chemistry between them two will be very entertaining to watch. Bruno, one of the judges, noticed that Brant lost his timing. It’s the first week and you can only move up from here.
Carrie Ann gave Brant a 7. Len gave the first 8 of the season. Brant received a 7 from Bruno for a 22 out of 30. Now the first week jitters are all over. He must feel very happy and relieved to have gone first because not only are you the first to get it done and out of the way, but now you setting the bar high and raising the standards of the new competition.
‘Thieves, Inc.’ Steals Food Network
Connie and Scott in and out of costume.
Food Network’s latest addition to its new Undercover Wednesdays is Thieves, Inc., which has Monument Security’s Connie Ribble and Scott McDonald steal from the clients. Store must be happy that these two are on their side because Connie and Scott don’t have to try very hard to successfully steal thousands of dollars worth of merchandise in a matter of minutes.
In the first episode, Connie and Scott helped the owner of a gourmet food store, Garden of Eden in New York City, catch thieves and improve his security. At first, Connie and Scott use the typical strategies thieves use, such as dressing up as someone who stocks shelves or using a baby to throw off suspicion. If they have no problem doing those, they get more brazen and start doing crazy things like stealing an entire food cart that was sitting outside in front of the store. Shockingly, no one notices and those who do don’t question. Granted, the store is in NYC, but even New Yorkers can only tolerate so much strange behavior. The fact that Connie and Scott get away with so much and dress up in crazy outfits makes the show fun to watch.
‘Heroes of Cosplay’: Nerd Culture Not At Its Best
Yaya Hun
I have a few bones to pick with Syfy’s newest nerd-based show, Heroes of Cosplay. Like, dinosaur-sized bones.
The art of cosplay, for the unenlightened, involves the meticulous crafting of costumes from pop culture; anything from TV, film, video games, comics, and loads of other media are fair play. Arguably one of the more expensive hobbies out there, cosplay combines hard work, craftsmanship, creativity, and a dash of theatricality. It offers a different kind of escapism, a chance to become your favorite character while building self-confidence. At the very least, Heroes of Cosplay succeeds in demonstrating these central tenements. The level of detail afforded for every costume unveiled on the show is staggering and gives me a decided inferiority complex as a casual cosplayer.
‘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.
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.
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.
Perez Hilton Visits “America’s Next Top Model”
The competition on America’s Next Top Model is heating up. This week, contestants were given the chance to talk to their loved ones. All 12 of the contestants had to split one hour among themselves with the winner of last week’s best photo, Jourdan, receiving 10 minutes. Jourdan abuses the privilege by talking to her boyfriend for over ten minutes and other members of the house understandably get annoyed.
Everyone feels that Jourdan is top dog on America’s Next Top Model because she has been getting high praise lately from the judges and abuses her privileges. Of course, contestants get annoyed at Jeremy as well. He likes Jourdan, will defend her, and everyone knows it.
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.
The “America’s Next Top Model” Men Get Catty
Oh boy! If you thought last week was entertaining, this week certainly turned up a couple of notches. Within the first few minutes, tension in the house already started to form between Chris H. and Mike.
Chris has a tendency of being overly dramatic and Mike told him to shut the f**k up. This was all over having a 5 minute conversation with a loved one back at home. Chris mentions that he remembers his mom as being abusive physically and verbally. An example would be, she chucked a cell phone at his head. Being disrespected by another fellow contestant, Chris sees Mike in a whole different light. Ouch, can you say catfight? And there was certainly no catwalk there to be seen. Mike is certainly no fan of Chris’s if Mike would call Chris “a dramatic little bitch.” Since when do guys get so caddy all of a sudden on the show?
Wait! What's A Dial? 