Taeolas

It's curious that some US Reality shows are coming to Canada. It doesn't happen often, but Top Chef is certainly a big one. IIRC, I think I heard one of the Bachelor-type shows did a season in Banff or Jasper. And the last season of Tough As Nails was done in Hamilton, Ontario with a US vs Canada friendly rivalry theme. It doesn't happen often, but that it happens is a bit curious.

On a more positive note, I'm impressed that PEI actually hit their radar. It's our smallest province and doesn't really have the connections to the rest of the world like Calgary, Toronto and Montreal have. (Though it is a big Asian tourist destination due to Anne of Green Gables). When the Canadian Maritimes get international attention, it tends to be more focused on Halifax, and rarely on PEI or New Brunswick (or Cape Breton which would have been another great location for Top Chef to visit)

Not too surprising. It was an interesting show, but it just didn't seem to click well enough. The Seth effect also didn't do much for me, and was more of a distraction most of the time. (Though I am impressed that he does seem to be able to legit throw clay) And considering CBCs future prospects with federal funding, they are probably preemptively trimming the budgets.

I know, I heard that and saw the list of locations they are planning.... and immediately realized that in 1 season, Top Chef is going to see more of Canada than a dozen seasons of Top Chef Canada has seen. I guess McEwan isn't involved in the production of TopChef enough to force them to shop at his grocery store. :)

Coming up on 12 seasons already for Hot Bench.... and it's time to shake the bench up. Judge Corriero will be retiring from the Hot Bench The show is also moving production from LA to Connecticut. No word on who the new 3rd judge will be. And the 2000th episode is coming up this Thursday, Jan 23.

They probably want to keep those items near the door as "trap" and "last moment items", like the Hat ended up being. So you can leave items in the no-stack zone, but you CAN'T put anything else on them; you have to keep anything else you grab in your arms/on your body while you're pushing/taking the rest out.

Yeah, getting the car AND one of the bonus prizes barely put the guys over the top. Which to me says you need to count on getting at least 2 to have even a remote chance of getting the 50G minimum. That said, they felt a bit slow in the final raid to me; they could probably have grabbed more. I do like the tactic of one person doing the car challenge and the second one actually pushing the car out. (And I saw the brake lights; someone's definitly in the driver's seat). I do want to go back to their 3rd raid. He loaded up the skateboard with stuff and set it rolling. It rolled into the no-stack zone while he let it go to grab the hat. It feels to me that technically he maybe should have lost something for that; but he got them back basically for style points. Maybe because he didn't put the hat on the skateboard but kept holding it, it didn't count as 'stacking'? As long as you're touching it when you cross the doorway, you seem able to keep it. The hip pattern for the trip felt like it went a bit long. The pull yourself up the slide challenge was fine. Not sure what to make with the baseball one earlier on; I wasn't paying enough attention to it. The car scratch ticket and the stuffy pit for the other trip were fine as challenges too.

One thing I wonder, is if they had someone in the car when she was pushing it out. The windows were tinted so I couldn't tell, but I'm pretty sure the car wasn't a straight push out the exit. So someone would have had to turn the wheels a little for them to go so cleanly through the door like that. I also wonder if the car was a "no stack" prize, since if I was about to start pushing it, I'd likely be tossing a few things on the roof before going. The weight wouldn't change much. I'd just have to be careful to do it BEFORE I start pushing because otherwise it's liable to roll into the NoStack zone and those items would be DQed.

I'm fine with them just having a body part outside and keeping anything they are holding. As we saw with the guys this time, he got out, but he was basically only holding onto 1 or 2 things since everything else fell off. The no-stack zone at the entrance is a great addition and counter to the stack and step out while touching something you stacked at the entrance tactics. It forces you to have to pull your container out somewhat, which cna make you lose things from falling off. They didn't mention it, but I'm pretty sure the mothers had the carriage in the no-stack zone while she was grabbing a few more things so even if she had gotten out, a lot of their haul may have been negated. For the final raid, I think at least 2 of the challenges were needed. Hitting 50Gs without the car is really hard. The kitchen appliances was probably 10-15G as well and with the car probably put them over 50G just with the two. All three challenges did seem fairly reasonable (all of the challenges even). Anyways, it's a fun show and I'm happy to see it back. :)

Names can be tricky in general with gameshows. Sometimes they demand full names, and sometimes they are fine with a distinctive name. That said, I think most sports fan would recognize "Howe" as "Gordie Howe" and give it... (unless they misheard it has "How?" maybe?) As for Thicke, for singers, that is probably identifiable enough, but for celebrities you'd probably need to clarify because you could have either Robin or Alan. Sometimes it just seems like the luck of the judge for if you get the credit or not.

I'm calling shenanigans on the Accessories category. Angie said Hajib and they didn't give it to her. They usually aren't that picking on pronounciation and it sounded pretty close to me. I do wonder what they do if the judges do mess up? Interrupting a challenge midway would be difficult, but something would have to be done. In any case, I'm glad it was a Best of 3 battle in the end. I suspect there is a 101st category everyone knows about, but it isn't mentioned until its needed. This time it wasn't needed. And that said, as a science nerd, I would've been all over Periodic Table long before the final challenge. I nailed most of them including some she passed on. Most of the rest of the categories I was FUBARed in of course. :)

I figure I recognize maybe a quarter of the people they have on the show; but that's mainly because I'm stuck in the 80's/90's and don't follow celebrities, sports nor influencers much. So I mainly recognize music artists from those eras and/or actors from t hat era but not much else. That said, I still enjoy the show even if I don't recognize most of the people under the mask because I usually have some idea where they are from even if I don't watch/listen to them. And I enjoy seeing people stretch their skills a bit and try new things which this show lets many do.

Wasp put in a strong showing, and any other season, he probably would have been the winner. But Buffalo's harmonies just could not be beat. And I think once he realized who they were, he was fine with losing to them. He obviously respected them a lot, both before and especially after the reveal. As I just mentioned in last week's ep thread, I think he was a bit disappointed he didn't get a real chance to do a duet with them in the end. (Other than the group intros they often did; but this ep didn't give them a chance to sing in it) All season long, Buffalo have been blowing us away. They did songs outside their genre, but their harmonizing was hard to hide. Later on, they somewhat went back to their roots and brought them out more, and were stronger for it. I (like many people) had their CD growing up. I'm Canadian, but I often listened to an American rock/pop station, so I was exposed to them that way and sought their disc out that time. I enjoyed their music, but didn't follow them much, so I don't know anything about their history after their time in the spotlight. For me, they just faded away like all the other boy bads and girl bands and other low-hit wonders through the years. But last night, their voices really came through and the memories came flooding back. So big gratz to BoysIIBuffalo; you did a great job (even if the show is rigged 10 ways from sunday, it was a solid competition and win this year)

Watched this ep and the finale back to back. It was clear Wasp and Buffalo were going to be the finals, but I did worry a little in the final showdown. Strawberry Shortcake was good; but the other two were a league above her. And the showdown wasn't really fair to her. Pitting her in a duet with a strong harmony group like Buffalo was bringing a knife to a tactical nuclear war. She held her own, but was obviously blown out of the water. I half wonder if everyone suspected who buffalo were behind the scenes, and Strawberry just wanted the chance to do a duet with them before leaving the show. I'm sure Wasp wanted a similar chance but the setup just didn't allow it. And yes, the Friendship Bracelet clue was so obvious that I was worried they were booting Buffalo early for some reason, which would have been a crime.

Agreed, the bouncing elf off the end of the tree IMO was the part that sold it. The other two were decent but didn't have the wow factor nor the polish like the tilting tree did.