Bella

The entire world looks just like Los Angeles. Except when it looks like Toronto or Vancouver.

Yeah, that preview was ghastly. I do not want to see a show focused on kid/parent bickering.

Wasn't that around the time Titanic came out? LDiC would have been a great choice then. I suspect TPTB went with whoever was willing, available on short notice, and recognizable.

I had a thought along the same lines - not the heaviness of the sculpt, but a lower piece with wires that had flame-colored pieces that waved whenever the model moved her head.

It's okay to like or dislike Richard Blais (or anyone else). Yes, he's edited. We do not know the effect of the editing, whether we see him at his best, worst, or somewhere in between. It's okay to disagree with each other here, and it's okay to argue. But it's getting a bit too heated right now, and it would be a good idea to dial it back a notch. Thanks!

Villains usually go deep; otherwise, why bother with editing them that way, even if they are horses' patooties? Only once did the competitor I most loathed leave a competition early, and that was a show with several villains.

That's true, though Graffiato and Kapnos have had very good reviews from Sietsema despite not making his favorites list. Still, the competition is quite stiff just within Penn Quarter, and while I'll continue to defend Isabella's cooking chops, you're right in that he's not yet up there with the best. I do wonder how much of a distraction it is to be a "reality TV personality" on top of being a chef. I've always assumed it was huge and had potential to detract from the real work of running a good restaurant. Which brings me back to Richard Blais. The man can cook, there's no doubt. He's inventive and skilled. If he prefers to be in front of the camera this much, that's his choice, but it seems like lost potential.

Aha! That's what I was wondering about without thinking it through all the way - counteracting the hot lights. Thanks.

I wonder if cold sets might be the reason for overdressing characters who should rightly be wearing less. That wouldn't explain the people running outside in the dead of winter wearing a thin sweater, but maybe set comfort is more of an issue than we realize??? Does anyone know, because this is 100% speculation on my part.

And this is where I burst out laughing! Sorry about the disaster, but I admire both your persistence and your ability to tell a story about yourself.

Okay, that's funny.

Isabella-lite (love that!) had a pre-show interview in the Washington Post in which he merely said that this was the hardest thing he'd ever done. At that point, I figured he was an early out, though this early is comical. Isabella has some excellent restaurants to back up his cocky attitude, but he and his clone are Exhibit A for "shut up and cook" - especially the shut up part.

It's not hats per se that seem affected, it's the hats he chooses with the frog faces, etc. But good point about the thinning hair.

Don't send those kids over to my lawn! yelled the woman who just yesterday rather politely asked a neighbor-child to not ride his scooter on her patio. Cig's facial hair makes him look older than 25 IMO, and that could be deliberate. The hats seem rather like h.s. or college affectations, however, negating the effect. I am not in the "any of these people for the win" category. I want Dina to win, with Cig second. I think Dina is outstanding, one of the most talented designers in the history of the show. I also wonder if anyone smelled the chocolate in her make-up. With Stella's broken points, I wondered if it might have been possible to spray paint them as they were or cut them down and paint them. It's not as if fire follows neat, clean lines, after all.

I love Dina, she's by far my favorite, but props to Cig for stepping outside his comfort zone and doing so well. As Mr. W pointed out, however, if you take the label off, it's a basic design challenge. I'm still beyond delighted at this season's focus on something other than monsters. If there is ever a real all-star season (not a hybrid like that one season), I want Stella to come back.

Maybe it was a goof - she didn't have an illness or sob story, so she manufactured that in order to mock the show, except it was too subtle.

Warning, I'm about to vent: A lot of us watch a range of TV shows. Both here and, until it folded, at TWOP, there have frequent comments from viewers of reality TV shows about how to improve those shows. TPTB from some shows obviously do read forums like this one. And some do take the comments seriously, a stellar example being Face Off. For that show, viewers were complaining about how all of the challenges seemed to involve monster make-up, and we were tired of it. This season has been a welcome departure from that, with a wide range of diverse challenges. Quite simply, the show has improved. Top Chef fucking ignores us. On what planet does anyone want to see more of Richard Blais? Hello? Anyone? I don't want the ratings to tank, because I like the show and want it to continue. But how are they going to get a message that they care about? And how are they going to interpret that message? Would they dump more Richard Blais on us? Where did they get the idea that we want to see him? TPTB for this show are Idiots.

Every time I read this thread's title, I think "everything." And that's probably going to be the case unless or until one of the kids leaves home and publicly turns on Jim Boob and MEchelle and their whole act.

Here's what's bothering me about a 26th season: isn't the race that airs in the late winter/spring actually run starting in late November and ending shortly before Christmas? If so, I'm not sure that the network's delay in calling for a new season will give the producers enough time to set things up. That would mean a delay in airing a potential Season 26, possibly even a skip in the schedule. I'd love to be wrong, but I also don't want to engage in wishful thinking or rationalizing, and it doesn't look good by that standard.

::works from home wearing yoga pants all the time, waves at sweatpants-wearing counterpart:: I wondered if there were discrete differences that those of us outside NYC fashion circles were not discerning enough to see, if they were just messing with us, if they didn't give a damn, if they had lousy continuity, or some combination thereof. I think it was a combination, with lots of "just messing with us" in there.

FYI was BIO and is owned by the A&E Network, which also owns Lifetime. A&E does not own the Food Network; that and the Cooking Channel are owned by Scripps.

True, but the show comes from Hollywood. If Tom Cruise and any number of other bohunks can survive these things and hit the ground running, so can Audrey. At least I hope!

I may be able to get some detail on that in a couple of weeks.

Jay has me completely weirded out. It's as if this show should be renamed "I'm a Cat with the Owner from Hell."

At least Isabella has several highly successful and well-reviewed restaurants that he's actively involved in. He is a credible chef who does what chefs do, in addition to playing famewhore. From what I can tell, however, we PTV-ers haven't even determined for sure what Blais is doing these days.