This Week in Reality

Amazing Race

My DVR messed up last Sunday and I ended up missing ten minutes of the episode but I caught most of the action. Team Hockey coasted to an easy win thanks to the Fast Forward and in a surprise the Besties got themselves eliminated because they panicked and switched Detours when they were surrounded by other teams. Thanks to that mental mistake we were denied the chance to see the Newlyweds be eliminated and are "treated to another episode of them. 

With the Besties sent packing I think Team Hockey are the clear leaders now but the race can get weird sometimes. All it takes is a wrong turn or a bad cabbie to send you home so I'm prepared for some more unexpected finishes. At this point the only team that I think do not have a chance are Chuck and Wynona.

Thanks to the ACM awards there is no new episode this week but you can read my full recap of last week's episode here at MJ's Big Blog.

Survivor

We got the merge on this week's Survivor and with it came some solid strategy. I loved the idea Malcolm and Corinne planned but Corinne's execution of the plan was weak. She was working too hard to plan Phillip's elimination when she should have held firm and waited to ensure Sherri was sent packing. 

And with her bad move it puts Malcolm on the outside with Reynold, Eddie, and Michael. Malcolm is a great player but I think at this point the other alliance is tight enough to wait until the rest of the fans (minus Sherri) and Malcolm are gone before attacking each other. It's a classic example of a great player being down in by someone else's bad moves. 

I like Malcolm so I hope he can turn it around but I think it's a done deal that he will be gone in a few weeks now. 

For my full recap you can go to MJ's Big Blog here.

The Voice

I continue to not really have any deep liking for the people going through on the voice. Especially the people who went through on Thursday night. I can't really see any of them lasting past the Battle Rounds but hopefully one or two will surprise like Amanda Brown last year.

I did like the quirkiness of Michelle Chamuel and I think she can be interesting with the right song choices. I also liked Taylor Beckham's voice but fear she will fail to sing songs she can actually connect with since she is so young.

The artist I really liked was Warran Stone. I like when people connect with the songs they sing and I think she has the experience to put on some interesting performances and become a fan fave. I also like that he chose Adam over Blake. Blake's team this year is really country heavy and I think had Warren went with Blake he may have been lost in the shuffle.

But let's be honest. I watch the show for the judges and at this point the coaches on The Voice are destroying American Idol.  Shakira has been a pleasant surprise because I didn't expect her to be such a breakout star and highly entertaining with the other guys. She also blows away Christina as a coach and a personality.

You can read the recaps and watch videos at MJ's Big Blog here and here.

Hell's Kitchen

We have seen people done in by Scallops and Beef Wellington but I never thought someone would be have their game destroyed by Pancakes. It was amazing seeing the women have so much trouble with flipping pancakes and that lead to another dinner service win for the men.

It's amazing that the men can do anything right as they keep losing the reward tasks to the ladies but they actually had a good service this episode.

We were left off with another cliffhanger ending as the Ladies' nominations of Mary and Jacqueline were sent back in line as Chef Ramsey had someone else in mind to send home. I think he is starting to get pissed off with the ladies nominations as they continue to nominate people who should not be nominated for elimination and we will see who he sends home next week.

Big Brother Canada

The week started with a crazy twist on Sunday where Topez had to nominate two people right away. For some crazy reason she proceeded to spell out her plan outloud even through this was an unexpected twist and she should have expected others may be listening or atleast find out what happened. She ended up nominating Andrew and AJ but made it clear that she wanted Andrew to go home.

This is where the week got interesting. The housemates were told they would be voting right away and Alec and Peter decided to take this chance to turn on Topez and Gary. They went against Topez's wishes and voted out AJ helping send him out the door. This was the beginning of the end of the Topez/Alec showmance as they took the time to actually "break up." The rest of the week was filled with awkwardness with Topez arguing with everyone. The low point was when Topez discovered Alec and Talla sharing a bed because Talla was scared from watching Evil Dead as an award earlier. Topez over reacted and started calling Talla every name in the book.

Sunday's episode also included a new Head of House competition. It was a quiz competition that Andrew one. This also allowed him to pick the have nots for the week and he choose Peter, Talla, Gary, and Emmitt who had a Slop Pass and could use it to get out of being forced to only eat slop. Andrew also took the time to nomimate Gary and Topez. While he stated he wanted Topez out to avenge AJ he actually wanted Gary send packing.  

My favorite part of the week was watching Gary over react to being placed on slop. There is no way to explain it in words but it was hilarious to watch. Unfortunately Blogger claims to not find it on YouTube but you can watch it here if you want a good laugh.

On Wednesday's episode Andrew won a Power of Veto that also included a reward to watch a pre-screening of the Evil Dead movie and he choose to share it with Talla and Jillian. It may have seemed like a good idea to take the two hot girls but sitting beside a screaming Talla would have driven me crazy. 

For Andrew it was good that he won the PoV since he wants Gary voted out so this allows him to keep the nominations the same.

On Thursday Gary was voted out in a 5-0 vote and the episode ended with an endurance competition so if you do not watch the Live Feeds you will need to wait until Sunday to see who won. 

American Idol

Let's be honest. This season is falling apart. And it's not even because of the talent. Outside of Lazaro the entire top ten were competent singers. It's a combination of poor song choices and horrible theme weeks.

Take this so called "Classic Rock/No Ballads" week that ended up being switched to Rock Week and including Ballads. And I don't buy into the whole "It's a power ballad" idea. A ballad is a ballad.

We lost Burnell this week and it's a shame because even through he was horrible this week singing Bon Jovi he is still miles ahead of Lazaro. Burnell's problem wasn't his singing but the fact that he never really seemed to connect to anything he was singing. He was definitely hurt by the dated American Idol song options more so then some other people.

Lazaro is the last hope for the guys and a part of me actually hopes he wins it all just to piss off the producers who have tried so hard to have a girl winner that they stacked the decks in the girl's favor. In all seriousness it is the first season I've watched since season three where I really didn't care who won the season. If I was forced to pick my favorite it would be Janelle but even that isn't a slam dunk for me. I just think she takes the most chances with her performances rather then rehashing the same performance every week (Kree/Amber). Angie continues to seem fake to me. I enjoy her when she is playing the singer/songwriter role behind the piano but once she steps away from the piano she loses so much of what makes her unique. As for Candace I still admit she is an amazing singer and deserves to last to the top three or even win but I don't connect to her performances in any way.

I'm not going to bother picking songs for the contestants this week. I mean I really don't care about the Burt Bacharach and Hal David song book. It's nothing against Burt Bacharach and Hal David but I just don't see this crop of idols being to do decent performances of the songs and it's obvious that it'll be plenty of ballads.

The "Songs You Wished You Wrote" could be a little more interesting if the contestants are brave enough to actually fight for a song like past idols of done rather then just simply picking off a list of 20 songs.

Fingers crossed for some surprises.