Amarsir

The thing is, American culture is pretty unavoidable most places on Earth. American TV and movies are shown (which is why American accents are rarely considered "exotic" when traveling the same way theirs would be here.) And of course our chains expansions give the illusion of being "American" even if they change the menu for the location. So you're unlikely to go to any first-world country and find people thinking "Gosh, wouldn't it be neat if we could experience American references?" That said, two things I've noted: 1) A diner, especially a chrome stools and checkered floor 50s diner, is distinctive enough and US enough that you probably could find a few of those around the world and they'd all be intentionally American. 2) You can often find an "American foods" shelf in grocery stores. (At least in Europe, I don't know about Australia.) Marshmallows, Peanut Butter, and crappy fake maple syrup seem to be standards.

The Cowboy Skyscraper Buffet might be better than Fat Ammy's (from Arrested Development). So many details in there. I knew they were working in the Jaguars but this was a pretty great way to do it.

Hard to say. But since Prue is a bit more critical than Mary was, and Paul has softened in response, it may be this is part of it.

Poor Dan seemed to have gotten in his own head. He knew what was going wrong but kept exacerbating one mistake in another. I do think they would have given a generous bit of grace to him as former Best Baker, but he realky 0/3’d it. Good for Briony, who’s been close herself in past weeks but really pulled up.

Chidi brought up that he was speaking in French, and Eleanor (we) were only hearing it as English. You're right, the explanation was revised a bit once they knew they'd be going back to Earth. In the pilot they thought it would be too convenient if all characters naturally spoke English, so Chidi's French was a way of seeming more multicultural. But then they needed flashbacks so they sent him to Australia, and they didn't want to bother with an accent that would be confusing to people who weren't following closely, so now he learned English in America before moving again. Overall it's a bit of work for an explanation, but not unreasonable.

Well, it's unlikely to be a bottle episode!

#cancelsouthpark has been part of their ads since Comedy Central announced the new season's start. Maybe it's building to something, but I suspect it's just a middle finger to social media critics. How are you supposed to build backlash against a show when "cancel this show" is what their fans say? (BTW they're already renewed for 2019. I guess it could end after that, but they could just stop if they wanted. No conspiracy required.)

Alyson in Wonderland was cute in an artistic way, even if I found the mechanics to be fairly obvious. By contrast, I wasn't sure how the tape measure was done until Penn spoke up. But fooled or not, measuring a distance on stage just isn't that exciting to me. It needed more pizazz. I have a guess on the card trick but I don't know it for sure. A little googling into what Penn said suggests to me it's not a new trick though. Like Penn, I think changing the classic rope trick to use a phone charger is just great. But I assumed the plug at the base was actually a battery dressed up to look like a plug. Since he handed that over to them and they were fooled, I guess not? And an FYI for the last trick: apparently the audio on the digital streaming version of the show is different from what went out on the air. So if you were an adult watching on CW.com today and wondering how it counts as a trick, that's why.

Was Sili-knife guy holding the knife right for chopping? I'm not sure he was. To my (non-expert) view he was holding too far back with the heel of the hand. But I could be wrong. I suspect it's about the logistics of TV sales. You need certain pricing, inventory, and exclusivity promises and I could see that being in conflict. However, she could probably start out on TSC and then shift to online for the long run so Arlene was probably a little too closed off as well.

Yeah they way she moved straight up definitely indicated harness. Not the twist I expected, so kudos for that. My biggest problem is that the casual sexism made it just a little too similar to last week's episode. In separate seasons these would both have been great, or even further apart in this one. But back-to-back it just feels like "yeah we get it, women are inferior."

Did they ever talk about Ivan on PSS? I'm sure Matt did on his behind-the-scenes stuff, but I don't listen to Ice Cream Social let alone Patreon it. I know Penn talked about a lot of acts, especially foolers. But now that you mention it, I don't recall a discussion of him. And yes, that was an underwhelming congrats from P&T.

I liked the boldness of what they were doing. Very South Park to make social commentary by having a casual reaction to a dark subject. But it did feel like very few jokes stretched over the whole episode. It needed 1-2 more turns to fill out the time. Statistically btw, school shootings are down since the 90s. Still valid to satirize public response, but it's a context I couldn't quite put out of mind.

I really liked Duvivier. Good trick and she kept nice patter (in her second language) going the whole time as well. Interesting note though: that's the second time this season we've seen a woman from another country coming on and performing a trick her father invented. Nothing wrong with any of that, but I wonder if it's indicative of an extra effort to get female performers for the show.

Arlene spent a lot of years on the step with Kevin. I think she's got a little of his "look out for US gene". However, I also sense that she thinks the deal should be won or lost based on the merit of the Dragon (with a lot of confidence in her own merit) and that undercutting is not playing along those lines. And thus is annoyed that others aren't playing by her (unwritten) rules. She should know better. Especially when Michelle asked to join and was denied. Of course there's going to be a competing offer. --- 4 really strong businesses for the premier. I'm sure they can't stay that strong all season but I wonder if they'll go back to the goofball pitches, including with the quickie segments. Those were always a fun part of the Canadian version that made it unique.

My favorite episode of the season so far, although that's not the highest of bars. Great how the selection of characters enabled them with so many different ways to be awful. Yeah that's my favorite thing about them, how they corrupt everyone else. I used to hope we'd get Bruce again so they could thoroughly ruin a previously good man. But given what we've since learned about Stephen Collins' real life, it's probably better to not use him.

Season Premiere Sept 20 @ 8pm. Joe and Wek are both gone. Replacing them are Lane Merrifield, founder of Club Penguin and former Disney Exec. And Vincenzo Guzzo, owner of movie theaters and restaurants. (Thus leaving the Dragon total at 6.) Companies are: Affici Inc, Excir Works, Happy Pops, and Lucky Iron Fish.

I've seen it over ice cream plenty of times. Over a baked dessert, especially a complex-on-its-own opera cake, not so much. What's new to me is a meringue roulade. It's hard enough to roll sponge and meringue cracks if you look at it funny. If you can pull it off, fantastic. But to me it seems that outside of a banking competition I would always choose something less perilous.

Not strictly true that Paul has never given a handshake on a showstopper. In this year's Stand Up 2 Cancer specials he gave one to Lee Mack for a lemon cake of his wife's recipe. But it's fair that he doesn't really count the celebrity specials, since he's pretty generous with handshakes there. She's from France, so my suspicion is that she didn't quite realize in the translation how it comes off. I felt Dan had Star Baker in the bag this week, with a handshake in the Signature and a solid performance in the other challenges. But I can't say Rahul didn't earn it for himself.

That's the thing - there were good character moments. This show does a good job of knowing who the characters are so they can simply be placed in a situation that plays itself out. Unfortunately that's also the bottom tier of effort. Pick a thing and "The Gang" does the thing. Pretty much every sitcom creates filler episodes by doing that. But for the same reason it doesn't deliver the cleverness we want from Sunny plots. There aren't surprises or new developments because The Gang is just doing what we all expect they would. Compare that to "Charlie Work" with its great plot that took us through an experience and taught us about Charlie. Riskier and harder to do but much more rewarding.

I think they were so involved in indulging the characters that they forgot to have a plot. You need both. Unfortunately it was completely obvious that the lock would only be the first clue, so all the drawing out that was supposed to lead to a hilarious twist was just a waste of time.

It was indeed. I love shop talk and his comments gave me some new insight. I also enjoyed Jason Mantzoukas as a guest more than I thought. I mean I listen to HDTGM so I'm no stranger to him on podcasts. But he's often forcing the high energy there and I didn't know how it would work against Marc. This was him just a little more low-key, natural, and having fun, and I liked that.

Well that was unexpected. What a crazy episode to film, knowing they have GH coming back, to jump right into Cindy being there and make an episode around replacing him with a doll.

That is what I meant, yes. Thank you.

Two days of selling with two ingredient challenges. New England won the first challenge (chayote) and got a $350 bonus. Just Wing it won the second and got matched for their sales in the special product (habanero) for $582. Ultimately neither challenge mattered as Just Wing It had something like $5650 while New England Grill had $3999. --- I'm happy for the Wing guys, though not as happy as FN execs probably are. But I don't think there was any fix to it. It's huge to have hometown advantage and habanero is not a tough product for a wings truck, and I'm sure FN realized that. But they were likely set well in advance and the guys could easily have been eliminated earlier if they hadn't actually been selling.

@theatremouse and @dsteele are correct. In addition, I'm pretty sure that Penn has said not everyone who gets filmed actually makes the air. I don't remember the exact number but my sense is something like 10%? Sometimes in magic things go wrong and it's possible a trick just doesn't work. In a live show you make a joke or use another out or just apologize and start over. But that doesn't really work for Fool Us format.. So in addition to performances going completely out of order, they don't even know how many episodes they'll get from X scheduled acts.