iscoffy

I really don't like horror at all, and kind of wish I hadn't seen this episode right before bed, but... oh well! I just won't move to any long-abandoned houses in the oil fields, or burn creepy dolls. Walter's demon seemed a little goofy on film. I don't know, in the light the details seemed scarier. The vines coming out of the possessed makeup were also a little weird to me in that they looked fine when the actor was still, but moved around with the rest of the face when the actor did anything in a way vines would not. Short of fabricating the vines as separate pieces, I'm not sure what could have been done about that, but I wasn't really a fan. I realize the tight time-frame, and I know they don't cover most nitpicks in the finale, but still. Melissa's was fine, and the demon was great, but why were the sticks coming out straight up from the possessed dude? Weird. I would have been happy with any of the three winning, as per usual with Face Off, but Rob was strong all season and so adorably overwhelmed when he won.

I am not especially thrilled about this, as it adds yet another variable. I am going to guess they gave the directors guidelines about how picky they could be, but some of the "visions" seem harder to execute than others, and the communication styles aren't exactly the same.

I can never figure out if the briefs are bad or lacking in detail, if some of the contestants don't have a lot of background knowledge, or if they just decide to ignore the parameters (or some combination thereof). "Satan's blacksmith" made me yell at the TV. Yvonne, that is not a thing in Greek myth! Hephaestus, yes. Hades wasn't really demonic, but okay, maybe the underworld needed a blacksmith. Satan?! And did Mel just not think about or know about Cerberus? If you're going to make a dog cyclops, you might as well tie it in somehow. Since they only got one eyeball and she was barely able to eek out one face, obviously three wasn't happening but still... Although I don't think it was ever said that the cyclops had to be intimidating, other than it being implied since their models were humongous. If she weren't so nervous, hesitant and second-guessing, she could have just gone all-out on a goofy character and said she meant it. Too bad half the time they still screw it up. Different shades of light lavender without good shading just wasn't ever going to work out. As an aside, the guest judge was really adorable. Was Melissa's obvious D&D dorkiness over her cyclops character a sign she'll rock next week's challenge, or totally geek out and lose it?

I for one would have appreciated a scene of Avery's ex-husband's jilted fiance and D.B.'s abandoned ex-wife partying together in Vegas, but I guess their happiness was not considered by the characters nor the writers.

Avery seemed to put DB in charge when she took off into the field with Krummy and Mundo. He obviously didn't have the authority to tell Raven to stay, but nobody at CTOC ever suffers any repercussions for their actions. Although I would much rather see D.B. bossing people around than canoodling in France or cutting off finger skin. Thanks for the discovery of that new squick, Cyber!

I don't know why, if D.B. was going to realize he was over forensics, he couldn't have reconciled with his wife in Seattle rather than this nonsense with Greer (sp?). I get that they were writing him off the show in case the show continues, but why have that take place via Paris with random woman? If Avery can get her ex back in the middle of his wedding plans, why not D.B.? They could have written almost anything, and that's what they came up with? (Tagline for the whole show, though.)

Ah yes, but this is the new Dolla Bill version of D.B. Although, even near the end of CSI, it seemed like D.B. was more concerned about supervising Fin than needing his grand vocation. I guess remote-controlled cockroaches and apparently unlimited fun money for tech from Avery wasn't enough to keep his job interesting-- only weird codependency with the departed Fin provided that, apparently.

That's amazing, even for these writers. I can't recall if the Hazleton Home was a secured wifi, but you kind of assume it was. Did they just change (somehow) all of the unsecured wifi they could find, and somehow his phone would still connect, even without needing a password? Hm. There was some kind of blah blah about the Russians having some chatter about buying it, so presumably Echo decided to get rich quick. However, they really didn't bother to explain how or why. I deeply wish we could have had one more scene of the extras breathlessly ooohing and aaaahing over our heroes. Alas for lost opportunities. This really made me laugh. As if a French waiter would be smiling so indulgently at an American's bad French. I guess it's sort of fitting that if this is the show's end, it was just as ridiculous, nonsensical and uninteresting as all the rest.

I can't say that I'm proud that I remembered that. I wonder if it will occur to Avery to feel mad at herself, because if she'd not spoken to hold Raven back at her hearing, her fate wouldn't hinge on the program Lil' Bow Wow just torpedoed (along with their relationship, presumably).

I could swear they already used supercookie. They posted a fake news story to try to get somebody or other to click on it so they could do the same thing they tried to do here. Sadly, I just looked it up, and it was the Goldenbeast episode in season 1, "Ghost in the Machine." Apparently they can't even have original techno-phrases per episode! They should have gone with Recycle Bin, which appears to be where this show is going. They are dumping episodes at what would be an alarming rate, if I cared. They had a throwaway when he joined about him being divorced. Not sure why he doesn't care about the rest of his family anymore, but "Dolla Bill" is a whole new DB, apparently.

I was not planning to watch this, but somehow...and unsurprisingly, it was really dumb and anti-climatic. It was like a Bond movie, maybe the Timothy Dalton one, where all the whimsy was gone and the Bond villain had killer surge protectors and ridiculous riddles instead of sharks and flying bowler hats. Although I guess monologuing himself to death was a pretty Bond villain thing to do. Actually, maybe it was more like the Adam West Batman, also minus any fun. Only thankfully we don't need to tune in the same Bat Time, same Bat Channel because Python and maybe the show itself are dead. Python put a lot of effort into everything else, but when it came to killing Avery, I guess he forgot his Bat Elimination Plan. Shouldn't he have brought mom's head to watch it all play out, rather than her ashes? Did DB really need to physically make quartz to figure out what those elements made? Couldn't he have looked it up on, I don't know, the internet? Avery yelling that it totally made sense to put numerous active investigations and agents in danger because CTOC would rather stand around staring at a girl dying than reset their system or figure out some kind of workaround was really amazing. Yup, totally the only logical course of action, Avery.

Are they talking about Avery's daughter's childhood friend? That she had coffee with one time? Deep. "Elaborate code-like puzzles" sounds great, since the crack CSI: Cyber team is barely able to figure out extremely basic cases, cyber or otherwise.

Apparently Hallmark is doing a Facts of Life reunion of some kind on Monday 2/15, with Lisa Whelchel, Charlotte Rae, Todd Bridges, Kim Fields, and more special guests (whatever that means): http://www.hallmarkchannel.com/home-and-family/videos

I also just watched this on ID for the first time. She was really not at all clever, although she obviously thought she was. She really thought that somehow "guessing" the types of poison that killed her poor husband would deflect police attention from her and get her the insurance money faster? A truly horrible and stupid person, on every level. Good acting job from the policeman who had to pretend to be shocked by her made-up stuff they knew that Chad didn't say on the call at all, since they were on it too.

Avery is pretty arbitrary, isn't she? Her "feelings" tell her Raven needs more time, because she didn't tell them she bumped into her ex on the street, so her judgment is questionable. Unlike, say, Mundo's when he put the beatdown on all sorts of people because he was sad about his dad. Or, say, Bow Wow's, when he did whatever dumb thing he did to try to deal with his hacker friends, or logged in to look up crap about his brother. Or, you know, Krummy and his battle bots and his murdering sister. But at least Avery feels bad about it... I admit to wrapping presents during this and not paying the most attention, but the Mundo Family Drama Hour is way boring and they aren't managing to make it any less boring over time.

Was that lawyer guy also really dumb? He couldn't create some other alias to use that wouldn't connect to his rowing crew? I don't even get how they had anything approaching probable cause to arrest that guy, either. It seemed like all they knew was that someone who wanted to protect the rapists was SOT515 and it wasn't one of the rowers. Solid and specific evidence there.

I just laughed until I cried at Keith Morrison reading Grinch. This may become a new holiday tradition! Thank you (I think).

Anything Goes has that awful part with white characters "disguising" themselves through yellowface, though. They'd have to do something about that part,

NBC had previously announced The Music Man, so I am guessing we'll see it sooner or later. http://tvline.com/2015/03/30/the-wiz-nbc-2015-live-musical-airdate-cirque-du-soleil/ It's not one of my favorites, so I'm glad they went with The Wiz instead.

I think part of what helped this a lot was that it seemed fairly effortless. Everyone was talented and rehearsed, and even the weaker links weren't tragically bad. The previous productions had this very labored feel to them, lots of "I'm trying, look how hard I'm trying!" There's always suspension of disbelief in theater, but I don't want to be noticing how hard anyone is working, especially if their hard work isn't very good (Allison Williams, poor, miscast Carrie Underwood).

I was wary, having only made it through the previous two with the aid of heavy drinking and heavy snark, but this was really delightful. The costuming and sets were just right, and the pacing and transitions made the lack of audience less cringeworthy than with Sound of Music or Peter Pan (although I still think all of them would benefit from a live audience-- no clapping or response is just awkward for the medium, which is built for audience reaction). Mary J. Blige also surprised me by being over-the-top and fun; the promos featuring her were not promising, but she was fine. Drag King Queen Latifah, whatever her singing issues, was unsettlingly attractive as The Wiz. Killer face contouring. Hope any future productions are more like this and less like the previous.

Well, my guide says this episode, but it's the "ScrollMD" one, so, alas. I will have to rely on you all to tell me what will kill you and everyone you love, assuming anyone is seeing the new one.

Oh, good, more Taking!It!Personally! From everybody. Plus gore with giant drill bits. And a great big bad who has it out for Avery because she said mean things to him on the phone. Oh, dear, what suspense. It was very convenient that Python decided to use his mom's name as one of his "shelf babies." If he hadn't done that, all they would have known was that he went to camp as a kid, liked Catcher in the Rye, and had psoriasis. Preeeettty sure "He threatened you in a language I don't speak," doesn't pass muster.

Hotch has apparently let things play out that might damage someone's career without taking official action (Reid's addiction, for example) in the past, but he certainly was not oblivious to what was happening. Of course, the writers barely bothered to have Hotch in this episode, so who knows what he noticed or didn't notice. And not that, "J.J., go home and get some rest" would be a career-killer, but you know, super mom.

Yes, I'm fairly sure the writers just thought, "JJ is a SUPER MOM, and so therefore she would only do SUPER MOM stuff, like somehow heroically be able to do her job while not drinking coffee, because we looked up what you shouldn't eat/drink during breastfeeding on Wikipedia and caffeine was listed! Now let's move on to more SUPER scenes."