theatremouse

It's not so much the heaviness getting to me, I don't think. I'm down with heavy. But for me, it's been a bit much on the...I'm not even sure what I want to call it. Ominousness? Foreboding? They're clearly setting something up and, yes, it's heavy but it's also getting to a point of what feels to me like a lot of will this mean something later? are you paying close enough attention? and to a certain extent, I really like when shows reward me for paying attention, but I also sort of don't like feeling put on the spot about it? There's so much ambiguity, and I know the show has sort of always trafficked in that, and maybe it's just catching up to me more than the episodes themselves. I'm not quite sure. But it just seems like lots of little tiny clues as well as things that might be clues or might totally not and are just general quirkiness and I'm waiting for a wallop I assume is coming and it's giving me a general sense of unease. And I haven't decided yet whether that's a good thing.

That sounds fairly standard, given the context. If we were talking...a year later, she didn't win, a little more surprising, but given the show is still airing right now? Professionally, she is basically FN's property.

Thanks. I was asking specifically because I watched the (rerun?) of the Japan vs USA competition and it seemed incredibly scripted, not just in a backstory-characters-editing way. Going in I thought the Americans had no chance and the "shock" of not only how but when the Japanese competitors went down was just a little too...convenient? Dramatic? The way I'd expect a crappy writing staff to plot it out in advance? And the whole twice they had to go to the video to see the one second margin of the Japanese vs American who went out on the same rung of the same obstacle. Twice. So, I get that there's no way they could rig it from a live audience perspective. I take it they're not doing reshoots of the run. But it made me wonder if ever certain people were explicitly told to fall at certain times, for example. Anyway, that's what made me wonder. Again, I'm not trying to accuse anyone of shenanigans. I was more so just checking on maybe whether I was supposed to already know there were some and take it as such.

I have a question: is this show rigged? I'm asking sincerely, not to be inflammatory. For example, it's fairly common knowledge that WWE is not real; it's for entertainment purposes only and all staged. I am wondering if the same is at all true about this show, or if everything is theoretically real on this show, in terms of the run of the course, finish times, who falls where, and so forth.

This doesn't bug me so much unless I'm forgetting a bit where he implied his background was specifically from New Orleans? I think it's common enough nowadays with people moving fairly far fairly frequently that it's sort of 50/50 whether when someone says "from city X" they mean "grew up in" vs meaning "currently live in and consider home".

Because they can't. Because unless you have a huge curved TV in a home theater and are sitting at the proper distance and dead center to the screen, it's not better. So they instead need to rely on the "ooh, new" factor. The thing about the marionette commercials that bothers me isn't the human father and with marionette wife and child, nor that it implies someone must me manipulating the wife/child/grandpa, nor even that at least one of the boxes does need to be plugged in and wired. Here's my problem with the entire campaign: marionettes are stringed, not wired; they're strings. I get where they were trying to go because with marionettes it's difficult not to see the strings, and it's about not seeing the wires for your cable. But strings are not wires. So if I put myself in the position of, were I an animate marionette, how would I respond to these comments about wires...I would not take that personally as a ding against me and my wires, since I would not have any. And the biggest thing is, there is a way they could have made this silly premise work with better word choices: Say "cord" instead of "wire". "Cord" could apply to both scenarios. I've heard both string and wires/cables referred to as cord or cords. I have never heard someone use the terms wire and string interchangeably.

Anyone else seen the ESPN Arnold Palmer commercial? I cannot stop laughing at it. I guess I'm a sucker for a visual pun.

Because she was a controlling narcissist with a tendency to react violently anyway? Based on what we saw of her personality, I have no trouble believing her first thought was "that cheating asshole" and not "someone hacked someone's phone and created a duplicate profile with photos from said phone."

I agree, I can't stand when they pidgeonhole people or assume that the "real" way they cook is based on "heritage", because that's bullshit and not necessarily true. However, I do think she basically stepped in it when she admitted it was a tweak on something from a restaurant she worked in. There's valid criticism there in asking her not to do that in later rounds. It wasn't her restaruant, and I don't think it was implied she was in a high enough position to have developed the recipe herself. So, yeah, great dish, one she made a ton at work before, but was the original her recipe? I think it was strongly implied, no. So her being smart enough to do a tweak on something someone else came up with that she already knew worked? I mean on the one hand you could say nothing is original, everything is based on something. But basically, I think the bigger issue is wanting them to focus on originality. Of course, she's going to be influenced by where she's worked in the past, so maybe it's overly persnickety to criticize on that. But I pretty much think anyone who has seen this show before should know saying "this is based on X from restaurant Y" is the kiss of death. Even if it's based on the best dish at your place of employ, you're supposed to pretend what you did on the show was your own idea.

For me the tip off was when the victim said "coke in a wine glass, classy" and then he looked awkward. It was a weirdly familiar thing to say to your boyfriend's parents... and his reaction was definitely shot in such a way to draw attention to the odd look on his face. Although to be fair, when I initially watched that scene I couldn't tell whose parents they were, or what the relationships were exactly. But once it was clear they were her boyfriend's parents, that scene cemented itself as obvious in my mind.

I didn't think they meant to imply she was dressed like her intentionally? Just that between the hair, looking like a teen, they happened to be dressed similarly enough that the jogger's description would initially make the cops assume the girl he saw was the victim. I don't think the murder at all hinged on them wearing the same outfit.

The whole schtick with the elephant made me sort of uncomfortable, even though he was presented as absolutely cool with it.

I was actually expecting them to go to the video after he finished his run to double-check his shirt didn't touch the water; it looked that close to me. But I'm guessing when he was injured it made it unnecessary (or they did check it and they just didn't need to mention any of that in the narrative since stretcher is more interesting.)

So now that you've asked, I totally can't think of another, but when I originally said it I had it in my head for some reason there was a third... I might just be losing it.

I keep wondering if there's supposed to be significance to how Finn keeps getting married all over the place every once in a while when there's a surreal magic involving episode. I'm not sure if I'm completely overthinking that. It just sticks out to me.

For me, I don't even think it's really about which episodes to start with. I first tried watching at the recommendation of an acquaintance, who pointed me at a specific episode and I was just confused and didn't get it. Later, once several other friends had strongly urged me to watch I stumbled upon one of the Cartoon Network weekend minimarathons that had five eps in a row? Obviously, everyone's different, but for me, just having several episodes as context really helped me get into the show. I won't say it doesn't matter which, because certainly some, even as a fan, I'm not as keen on. But I think with this show possibly more than others, just watching even the, say, five best episodes wouldn't necessarily help someone get hooked. It takes a bit to get into. I think some of the better episodes, without other context for the characters, could easily be underwhelming to a first timer. Having said all that...Simon and Marcy.

I thought Charlize was great, but also, it was super obvious how much of a bomb that movie was from about 8 seconds of the interview. Charlize couldn't think of a way to describe it so that it'd sound like a movie with a plot. She was so grasping at straws and twice had to ask Seth to just describe it himself...Graham basically said "if you like MacFarlane's jokes, it's 2 hours of 'em" and then devolved into Graham just having him do the voices. They both sort of seemed embarrassed trying to describe the movie. I wonder what PR mastermind told Charlize it'd be a good move for her to even do that flick. I think Tom is sort of purposefully guarded these days, but he has also sort of always been an awkward anecdote-teller. But he also sort of sounds like he lives in a bubble when he talks. There were a couple of moments when Seth was doing seriously old hat schtick and Tom was cracking up like it was the first time he'd ever heard of it, because it probably was. That whole thing Emily Blunt was saying about she'd say "it sucks" and Tom said "it's challenging". That was like...Tom Cruise in a nutshell. He has his Tom Cruise face+voice on, and a good anecdote it does not make. He's so intentional.

I definitely thought LSP was kind of creepy with Finn. The arm thing was weird...I don't quite where they're going with this whole back and forth of being hung up on PB, especially since it didn't really look exactly like PB. More like a PB-esque hybrid with the Queen version of Breezy. I was surprised the armlessness didn't last a little longer? Actually, the more I think about it, a lot of scenes in this episode had a creepy vibe to me. Not my favourite.

I was completely surprised when the judges were so gaga over the aerialist with the animation. Unless she also animated it herself, I don't see how it shows very much talent. If you picture her act without the animation behind her, the aerial tricks she was doing were not that impressive at all. I also didn't think the story was particularly inventive. Mel B said something about being moved by the story? That really confused me. Run away from a bear...fall...swim away from a shark...get in a boat. Ok and...? The look of the piece was cool, and I think it's a great idea in general. So good on her for coming up with it but what was actually presented to me read more like a super basic proof of concept, not an actual story or something that could be expanded into an actual piece. I've disagreed with the judges about acts before, but usually at least I can see why they would like it even though I didn't. This is I think one of the only times where I was really flummoxed that they were all so enthusiastic.

I'm pretty sure that means:

I didn't find either of them especially crass, certainly not more so than I'd expect based on what were clearly pre-interview questions (ie I think every anecdote was exactly what they were expected to say). I couldn't exactly tell whether Jonah was being serious that he didn't realize Dame Julie was married to Blake Edwards. His initial reaction seemed genuine, but I also found it odd how he kept going on and on about it; I thought it made him look like an idiot, or at the very least, poor at reading a room.