Kaoteek

This week was pretty boring, to be honest, even though I like Disco. Saara was fine & felt legit in her performance ; Sam's I will Survive was very by the book, lacked energy and was utterly unmemorable, just like Ryan's Play that Funky Music ; one of the Jackson 5AM seemed completely off tune, and the medley + break at the end of the song didn't work for me ; Matt was okay, but that song isn't one of my favs ; Emily felt slightly off-key during most of the song ; and Honey G was Honey G. Can't say i'm particularly invested in who stays and who leaves anymore, but still, it would be nice to keep Saara a couple of weeks more, til December. Just think of the Christmas/Santa/Finland puns & songs they could do with her !

Song choices for this week. .... Yay. --------- EDIT : Okay, so... Matt was pretty mediocre ; Sam wasn't much better ; Honey G still has the energy, but that's about it ; Ryan was somewhat better than usual, which doesn't say much ; once again, I have no memory of Four of Diamonds' song ; didn't like Saara's song or esthetic choices, but at least she was memorable, and sang it well ; not a fan of Emily's One Direction ; 5 after Midnight's wasn't half bad, and them going last was smart, especially considering the rest of the show. In summary : I was thoroughly bored, this week, both by the song choices, and most performances.

Results : Next week, Fake enthusiasm !

I think I'll repeat my comment from last week : I'm so glad Saara's there to put on a memorable performance. Jackson 5AM's Thriller was okay, but a bit dodgy here and there ; Gifty's song was bland ; I wasn't a huge fan of Matt's version of I put a spell on you, but that wasn't on him, that was on the orchestration ; Honey G was... she was there ; Ryan's Backstreet Boys cover was a huge MISS ; Sam was okay, but a) the song had nothing to do with Halloween, and b) her voice just doesn't really work for me ; I've already forgotten what 4 of Diamonds were singing ; and Emily's Radiohead cover was fine but didn't leave much of an impression, overall. A bit too static, maybe.

I'm also expecting the Jackson 5AM to get Thriller, with the choreography, and so on... but i'm really hoping they'll be going all out with Saara, and give her something as theatrical & excentric as this week's Bjork.

At least Saara Aalto was memorable, this week. The rest of them are already just a blur. Aside from Honey G, sadly.

Oy vey. I think I haven't been so bored by a season in a while. Aside from Matt Terry (most likely to be in the final two/win the damn thing) & the Jackson 3 5 A.M. (energetic, fun, dynamic), noone stood out, this week : - Freddie Parker & Ryan Lawrie were both bland as heck and totally unmemorable. - Emily Middlemas didn't fare much better with her low-key, low-energy Stop, in the name of love cover. - Relley C had the perfect look for tonight, but she was just staring blankly into space during most of her song, and she's just lacking charisma compared to someone like Gifty. - Sam was... eh. And inaudible at some points due to the music/chorus. - One thing I can't blame Honey G for : she's giving it all she's got, and she's sincerely trying. But that's about it. - Gifty was pretty average, and unnecessarily shouty, tonight. Not the best song choice. - Can't help but have a soft spot for Finland girl, but she's way too over the top & theatrical in her singing to go anywhere in such a competition. Way too Eurovisiony. Or Vegasy. - Oh, I almost forgot Four of Diamonds. Quick, before I forget their performa-- oh, wait, too late, I have totally forgotten it. Oh, well. Can't say I'm really waiting for the results with bated breath.

...

I'm wondering if, at some point, they won't have some sort of scripted Honey G meltdown, and then, they'll be in a position to bring back Ivy Grace. (unlikely, I know)

Louie's & Sharon's picks... yeesh. As for Simon's & Nicole's, no real surprise there. Can't say i'm really looking forward to the live shows, with that roster...

Ugh, I hate the Wildcards stuff. Ivy Grace couldn't get a visa to to go the Judge's House in LA, so she's out, replaced by... Honey G. Also, Samantha Slavery, Ryan Lawrie, Finnish girl, and Yes LAd are back. Yay.

Yeah, it's not working for me. A good part of the problem is the odd picture & pose, in and of itself, but I can't say that I like the costume. The belt seems blocky and gives him a mid-80s action figure waist, the gold at the shoulders is just pointless, the overall costume lacks shape & form (which kills the actor's physique), and yeah, the actor's look & 5 o'clock shadow don't help. Not a fan.

Yeah, week 2 was more of the same, really : silly costumes (batman, robin, wolverine, pseudo-ninja and so on), sub-par commentary (repeating the rules of every single obstacle every time a new contestant gets to it really gets old, really fast ; jokes about a contestant's unshaved armpits, another contestant's buttocks in tights...) and still that very dated direction & editing, more focused on showing the family & friends' reactions after every obstacle than on giving the show some sort of rhythm or pacing... They're really playing the comedy card with this show (and downplaying the athletism one), and it's starting to backfire on social media, since the comparisons with Wipeout & Takeshi's Castle abound (both shows have aired on French tv a while back), and they're not favorable to Ninja Warrior. As far as ratings go, the show went from 5M to 4M between ep 1 and 2 ; remains to see if the show has legs...

Ship's ugly as sin but in Fuller I trust.

As much as I like Aimee Carrero (and Pinkston, too), I liked this setup better when it was called Supergirl (bitchy boss mispronouncing her assistant's first name included). Not a fan of that backdoor pilot, as you can guess, especially since the plot was pretty much by the book, and been there seen that.

The french version just aired it's first episode, and... meh. It's not really surprising, given the network it airs on, but the choices made by the production really killed it for me. It was flat, lifeless, repetitive (they only aired the first qualifying round, with a very unimpressive course, and mostly mediocre contestants), dated (the music queues were... campy) and the commentary team didn't really help, never really taking the competition seriously, with Dennis Brogniart announcing it with his "I'm doing the voiceovers of the French Survivor" voice & rehearsed comments, and Christophe Beaugrand's one-liners being barely Ninja Warrior UK-worthy. Also, way too much emphasis was put on the portraits, but, again, that's not really surprising, since TF1 focused a lot of the promo work, prior to airing, on the minor celebrities & web-famous people taking part in the show. That's their big selling point, here : "you know, that funny comedian you like on our network ? Come watch him fail miserably at the quintuple steps"... *sigh*

So far, Walter's vision is the most cohesive and well executed. Melissa's felt low-key and uninspired, she looks like she has nothing left in the tank. As for Rob, his concept just didn't translate well (though the possessed make-up was a bad idea, right from the start), and his director didn't help much. Unless either Melissa or Rob does a 180 with a genius demon make-up, I don't see Walter losing the competition.

Not a great week, once again, between a silly looking man-bat, an unfinished Gorn, an insect with all-too-human eyes, and Mel's human cockroach. Funnily enough, even though the final three were a given based on their overall body of work, I liked Mel's creation more than the other three, this week. Next week doesn't look too promising, as far as finals go : create a camera-ready monster for an horror short... meh.

So much fun. So much color. So much lightheartedness. So much adorableness. And funnily enough, even though I'm not a huge fan of the way they handled Banshee's offscreen transformation & sudden super-strength, I like her look. Granted, it would work better in a dark alley or under a stormy sky, and not in the middle of a park in broad daylight, but still, compared to the cheesy, low-rent Livewire we've got, she's much better, imo.

Well, that was one successful make-up (the obvious winner), and four misses - one obvious loser (that goblin was a mess), one mediocre, no-creativity, xeroxed-from-the-in-game-model troll (which felt a bit simplistic in its sculpting), one bipedal cow (loved Kazinsky's comments), and one barely wolfy enough worgen. Meh. As for the upcoming semi-finals, I'm bracing for the worst, with that "create a species from Kong's Skull Island" theme.

Not a huge fan of Melissa's cyclops (too busy, indeed, and a tad too Jem'Hadar for my tastes), and Rob's fetl derivative to me (I'm positive I've already seen that color palette & approximate sculpt elsewhere), but they were clearly top 2 here. As for the bottom two... well Walter's looked good from afar, mediocre from up close, but still better than dogface and rough, basic, horned blacksmith. Those two were my bottom two, and no, I wouldn't have saved any of those.

I have no problems with Walter getting the win, his creation was the most polished, technically speaking, and could pass as an evil genie, very Wishmastery. However, I don't really get how a bland plastic-looking Ganesh clone was more "genie" than a mischievious party cat with flaming red hair. At some point, the gap between what the judges wanted to see in a genie and what a genie could be - it could be anything, it's a freaking genie - became problematic to me. And I get that Robert's schtick kinda wasn't popular here (and he wasn't gonna win the competition, anyway), but now that he's gone, it's back to bland, blander and mcbland, with nary a hint of personality amongst the contestants, nor enough talent to get me to remember who's who.

Fine with the bottom two, even though I would have had Tree Witch at the bottom, too. As for the winning look, Skull Girl should have gotten the win. Very eery make-up, whereas Dragon Girl was nicely done, but ultimately unmemorable.

Meh, not a fan of the winning look, very derivative, and just too... broad. Wand girl should have been the top look, if just for the grey-scale concept which set it apart. I also agree that most of those concepts were incredibly on the nose... so much so that it really was best of the worst, once again.

I'm thinking TPTB are going to do what they've done in s1 : pick and choose bits of comic-book canon, and mix them together in a way that will render most of our guesses pointless. For instance : real Jay is clearly under the iron mask ; there's also The Rival - Jay's Reverse Flash, who in the comic developed Velocity 9, a temporary serum to mimic Jay's abilities, and who's often depicted as wearing Jay's costume, only darker ; there's Hunter Solomon ; there's Zoom ; there's always the possibility of a Reverse Flash from another Earth : if someone (Zoom/Rival) got to him before he could go back in time, then maybe that someone got his face-changing technology, and is now posing as Jay ; there's also the Black Flash, who looks just like this show's Zoom ; and of course, Earth 3, 4, 5, and so on, which could lead to any combo of any incarnation of Flash's dopplegangers... Right now, I'm guessing we're gonna have two baddies : some sort of version of the Rival (who's been posing as Jay with Team Flash), and Zoom. And those two are probably closely tied together, maybe even the two sides of the same coin, split in two during Velocity serum tests. Which would make Zoom a Black Flash-type entity, just a hungry force feeling a constant need for speed, and having no real secret identity.