Alright, so I've missed an episode of each. Here's the rub: I don't get paid, if I got paid, I'm sure I'd never miss more than one show a week.... but I don't, so real quick:
Amazing Race: I don't really know, they're still in Africa, the tattooed couple are still mind blowingly stupid, and I missed most of the show. NEXT!
Last week's Survivor: Last week's survivor was not Jimmy T. Douchy Douche Face (I can't remember his name... he's an Technology Consultant or something) made the very accurate point that in the game of survivor, there's no room for paranoia or delusions of grandeur, both of which Jimmy T suffered from.
With that all out of the way, we continue to this week's survivor sans Jimmy -that's without any Jimmy's... meaning there's no Jimmy left. The young tribe has been whooping up on -that's consistently beating- the old tribe. So it's time for the show's producers to shake some shit up! -that's switch teams.
All right, that joke has run it's course... Naonka's primary role tonight was that of "Urban Dictionary" (and every time she used a phrase she deemed "too urban" for the average Survivor viewer, she would clear up what she meant by saying "that's something something something"). Unfortunately, I can't remember any of the phrases she translated for us, and while searching for any evidence, my first attempt left me at a ridiculously racist message board... like outright racism, none of the subtle racism myself or British people employ... and that made me uncomfortable. So I quit.
And we're back to the recap- so they switched the teams up... Naonka, One Legged Girl's Friend, NASCAR Jack Man, and someone else went to the old people's tribe, and Douchey Douche Face, someone else, and Crazy Old Gypsy Lady went to the young people's tribe. The Survivor had to go win me back by re-introducing the reward challenge... see, this had been a big problem for me. I didn't write about it because every blog entry I write is already 18,000 words, so I kept putting it off, hoping they'd fix it... and they did. But those first three weeks with only one challenge a show? Ridiculous! If I'm routing for someone (and I usually am) and they lose the reward challenge, I can always tell myself "It's OK, they'll get the immunity challenge" and it keeps me invested. Without that, I'm limping across the finish line every week.
So they did a reward challenge, and The Team That Cursed Itself By Voting Out The Great Jimmy Johnson Of Extense Commercial Fame or TTCIBVOTGJJOECF lost... because they're screwed... because of aforementioned poor voting. Speaking of poor voting! They lost the immunity challenge too! They then promptly voted off Tyrone because they thought he was too bossy or they wanted me to hate their tribe or something.... whoops.
Next Week: Something Else Happens!
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
The Amazing Late Blog Season whatever Week 2
Whoo! Late blog!
So here's what happened; I watched the Amazing Race Sunday night, had all sorts of great ideas. Monday I was going to write the blog but then I didn't want to. Deal with it.
So This week was "The Amazing Race takes a look at how destitute Africa is!". Here's the question: why? Look, as a TV show, there are two ways to approach Africa; 1. point out how crazy sad it is and encourage people to do what they can about it or 2. Don't. I'm not saying don't as in don't encourage people, I'm saying don't approach it. All that being said, The Amazing Race clearly suffers from an almost cripplingly small amount of self awareness. It's a fact I'm going to have to embrace ala "America's Next Top Model" or it will drive me away like <insert name of celebrity that takes themselves way too seriously and that I once enjoyed but now don't that's not Kanye West>
So, the racers (from this point forward I will call the contestants "the racers") first step is to travel from London to Accra, Ghana. They all race like mad men (and women) to get to Heathrow airport only to discover that there is only one flight to Accra a day... cue letdown trombone sound (you know. "wa whaa").
They all arive in Accra, get in cabs and drive through the worst part of town to get to a park memorializing Ghana's independence. Nothing exciting happens in the park, but on the way to the park every car is... well, "approached" isn't the right word, but neither is attacked... anyway, all of the contestants are aggresivley pursued -while in their cabs- by people begging for money. The cab driver advises the two A Capella singers to hide their money... they respond by harmonizing "get us out of here" while one of them complains that "that one spit on me!"... yikes. Ms. Somewhere guiltily gives a small child reaching into the cab a coin (I point this out because something tells me they were told not to feed the vagrants).
After they leave the park in the worst part of town, they then travel through the worst part of the city (that's not an oversight on my part) to get to a marketplace where they'll have to sell sunglasses to locals who exhibit a shockingly low interest in haggling, but a not-shockingly high interest in messing with the racers. The old Asian man from the Asian father/son team assures his son that this market is just like the markets in Singapore when he was growing up. He then proceeds to, unconvincingly, beg people to buy sunglasses from him... it's a bit of a letdown. The Home Shopping network team manages to win this section of the challenge handily by -as the producers would have us believe- slutting it up.
Once they've sold 15 Cedi (Ghana's currency) worth of glasses, they get into another cab and head to the "June 4th" district, where they pick between mounting a makeshift antenna on someone's house and hooking up their TV or carrying a novelty coffin to a showroom across town. I don't even have anything to say here... it's at least as bad as it sounds in print.
Eventually they all got to run through a crowd to Jeff Probst (it's not Jeff Probst, but it'd be better if it were) standing next to a woman wearing a basket of fish on her head. I think the couple that hasn't been together very long wins. And the Birth-Mother/Daughter team loses. Bummer.
Before we leave The Amazing Race gives us one last fact about Accra: Apparently their mass transit system consists of a number of mini-vans with no schedules or routes. Yup.
So here's what happened; I watched the Amazing Race Sunday night, had all sorts of great ideas. Monday I was going to write the blog but then I didn't want to. Deal with it.
So This week was "The Amazing Race takes a look at how destitute Africa is!". Here's the question: why? Look, as a TV show, there are two ways to approach Africa; 1. point out how crazy sad it is and encourage people to do what they can about it or 2. Don't. I'm not saying don't as in don't encourage people, I'm saying don't approach it. All that being said, The Amazing Race clearly suffers from an almost cripplingly small amount of self awareness. It's a fact I'm going to have to embrace ala "America's Next Top Model" or it will drive me away like <insert name of celebrity that takes themselves way too seriously and that I once enjoyed but now don't that's not Kanye West>
So, the racers (from this point forward I will call the contestants "the racers") first step is to travel from London to Accra, Ghana. They all race like mad men (and women) to get to Heathrow airport only to discover that there is only one flight to Accra a day... cue letdown trombone sound (you know. "wa whaa").
They all arive in Accra, get in cabs and drive through the worst part of town to get to a park memorializing Ghana's independence. Nothing exciting happens in the park, but on the way to the park every car is... well, "approached" isn't the right word, but neither is attacked... anyway, all of the contestants are aggresivley pursued -while in their cabs- by people begging for money. The cab driver advises the two A Capella singers to hide their money... they respond by harmonizing "get us out of here" while one of them complains that "that one spit on me!"... yikes. Ms. Somewhere guiltily gives a small child reaching into the cab a coin (I point this out because something tells me they were told not to feed the vagrants).
After they leave the park in the worst part of town, they then travel through the worst part of the city (that's not an oversight on my part) to get to a marketplace where they'll have to sell sunglasses to locals who exhibit a shockingly low interest in haggling, but a not-shockingly high interest in messing with the racers. The old Asian man from the Asian father/son team assures his son that this market is just like the markets in Singapore when he was growing up. He then proceeds to, unconvincingly, beg people to buy sunglasses from him... it's a bit of a letdown. The Home Shopping network team manages to win this section of the challenge handily by -as the producers would have us believe- slutting it up.
Once they've sold 15 Cedi (Ghana's currency) worth of glasses, they get into another cab and head to the "June 4th" district, where they pick between mounting a makeshift antenna on someone's house and hooking up their TV or carrying a novelty coffin to a showroom across town. I don't even have anything to say here... it's at least as bad as it sounds in print.
Eventually they all got to run through a crowd to Jeff Probst (it's not Jeff Probst, but it'd be better if it were) standing next to a woman wearing a basket of fish on her head. I think the couple that hasn't been together very long wins. And the Birth-Mother/Daughter team loses. Bummer.
Before we leave The Amazing Race gives us one last fact about Accra: Apparently their mass transit system consists of a number of mini-vans with no schedules or routes. Yup.
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