oakLeaf

You need to watch Z Nation.

The ending sort of reminded me of American Dreamer (Jo Beth Williams and Tom Conti). The two leads (novelists) are in Mortal Peril, and then the next scene is a happily ever after. At least in AD, the couple is writing about their adventure up to the Mortal Peril section, and they're trying to figure out how to end the scene. One of them says, "why don't we just write what actually happened" and the other says "We can't write that!" And they never did tell the audience what happened.

Father's Day episode Although I am still interested in the gold mining (husband and I are going to Nome soon to do some public beach mining), this show makes me so sad. When it first started, I really didn't like Sean at all (DUIs, anger, etc.). After watching the way Steve treats him over the past few seasons (and apparently the way Wally treats Steve), I'm actually much more sympathetic. It is heart-breaking to see how desperately Sean begs for any scrap of kindness from Steve. If Steve basically says "Sean, you don't suck as much as I thought you sucked," Sean's eyes just light up with gratitude. I'm glad to see that Sean is at least trying with his kid to break that cycle even though I'm sure he's having to work through a lot of anger issues. And Brad is such a giant douche canoe, but his boys keep trying to earn some recognition from him, too. Brad left his kids/wife pretty badly it seems and hooked up with younger chick (btw, men seem fairly plentiful in Nome; is Brad really the best she could do?) to pop out new kid. There's clearly a lot of hurt around that, and Brad really seems to not give two shits about his boys. When Kris threw his tantrum, I was hoping maybe THIS time he would really stay away, but he went crawling back to Brad yet again. Then Brad basically kicked him when he was down and made him grovel even more. I don't think any of these folk are good enough actors to be putting on these feelings (sure, some of the fight may be staged, but the pain in the eyes looks real). I do think Disco is pushing for these folk to continue to work together for the drama of it, and it feels so much like they are exploiting all these very broken people. And then I hate myself for continuing to watch and give Disco ratings. (but I will continue to watch because I think the High Noon looks like a good design, and I want to see it succeed)

I don't currently blame the citizens of NC for the idiocy. BUT if those assholes get re-elected, then I will.

RPDR:BotS - Seattle SPOILERS First, let me say that I'm a middle-aged fatty with bad knees and hot flashes. Seattle is undergoing an unprecedented April heatwave, and the theater having no air-conditioning did not help. Between standing for > 4 hours on concrete and the temperature, I was almost ready to drop. But I'm glad I didn't. First some Pearl shade. I eavesdropped on the guys behind us in line because they were entertaining and taking my mind off the heat. One of them brought up the fact that Pearl was DJing the pre-show, and the other guy said, "Yeah, well since it's Pearl, she's probably just going to push 'play' and stand there looking pretty." I neared gagged because that's almost exactly what Pearl did do. About every 10 minutes, she be slightly animated (and the crowd would go wild), but then she went back to just standing. It was like watching a cuckoo clock bird pop out once in a while. The intro bit was Little Mermaid themed, and Michelle was the sea witch. Totally loved that. We had (probably not in order): Michelle: welcomed the children in the audience and then proceeded to swear like a sailor and told the kiddies to ask their parents what tea-bagging was on the way home. Very funny bit. - Adore: gave great performances but still needs to elevate her look, IMO - Phi Phi: was really great - I didn't have much opinion of her during her season, but I loved her here - Ginger: lip sync was merely okay to me, but she was hilarious the rest of the time (during Snatch Game, she was Michelle, and it seemed Michelle was actually a bit annoyed at some of the jokes Ginger made) Miss Fame: she did an interesting bit where she drew (very well) a picture in front of the audience, but I still don't see much of a personality - Alaska: nice vulgar routine. I enjoyed it. - Violet: was Violet. She does burlesque very well (and seeing that waist in person is amazing), but I wish she were a bit livelier. - Courtney: she looked beautiful, and I loved her glow-in-the-dark outfit. - Jinx: she is definitely looking a bit chubbier, but she's so sweet. She and Michelle did a duet. Snatch Game was fine. The two audience members that were contestants were the absolute worst - zero attempt at being funny or making any sense at all. Michelle gave them a WTF look several times. I really wish that the queens wouldn't do other queens on SG (because I like seeing non-drag celebrities mocked - I like queens to throw shade at each other in different ways), but Alaska was Lady Bunny, and she was good. Courtney did some religious lady from NC that I did not know, but she did a nice job with the character and trashed the stupidity that is NC. Adore did Robbie and made a lot of jokes about wig lines and making excuses (Adore, you do know you're trashing Seattle queen Robbie IN Seattle - not that Robbie didn't deserve the read), and as mentioned Ginger did Michelle (with some completely hilarious accent and repeated mentions that Michelle was riding Ru's coat-tails). The did a little runway bit where Violet wore my very favorite outfit (the plaid convertible pajama thing), and Courtney wore the wings (which were cool). One thing that amused me in line waiting for the doors to open: there were several women that were middle-aged and had dragged (no pun intended) their husbands. These guys were clinging to their wives hands/arms/waists like they were worried someone was going to hit on them and they needed to advertise they were hetero. Yes, I am also a middle-aged woman who introduced her husband to drag, but my husband has really gotten into it (he's going to let me dress him, and he's going to be beautiful - seriously the boy has the longest lashes and the biggest green eyes).

Being from the South (and having a whole lotta family where the family tree doesn't fork), I totally understood what Chi Chi was saying. People do tend to treat folk with country accents as if they are stupid, so I love it that she tore it up on the LSFYL. And slightly off topic, I'm going to RPDR:BotS tonight. YAY!

I cannot remember the last time I actually cried out loud, but I had to just stop watching this episode for now because I just had tears streaming down my face. I have always loved the relationship between John and Parker, and John reminded me of my own Grandpa (who was not a gold miner but who also took a risk going to a new place and carving out a life for his family). I hope Parker and his family take comfort in the fact that John really had an excellent life right up until the end, and that he was a great example to his family.

I was completely blown away by "Bitch Perfect." To be able to that much much work in one day is amazing (especially since some major cat herding has to happen). I thought it looked like it had been rehearsed for a couple of weeks. It was probably my favorite ever group challenge. And they still had to do their costumes, too. I think the double elim was planned, but Ru was lucky that neither girl stood out during the lip sync. Had a good performance sashayed away, I would have been pissed off to do that just for drama (especially if Ru brings back someone I don't like), but seriously, "I Will Survive" is about as iconic as "It's Raining Men." There is no excuse for not Turning It Out. I (female and not a performer) have lip-synced "I Will Survive" in the privacy of my home as if I were a drag queen (more than once), and even I worked it harder than the girls did.

I was prepared to boycott this season because of Caleb. I absolutely hated his Amber-stalking on Big Brother (among other things). But I gave it a couple of episodes, and I'll be damned if I didn't actually LIKE Caleb this time around. If it took him being on BB (and watching himself or reading about himself afterward) to become more self-aware, then it was worth watching that crappy season. I am truly sorry that he went out when he was clearly giving it his all, and I actually would not mind if he came back for a second attempt on Survivor.

I really enjoyed the way Freddie did Vera's mannerisms - the way he walked when he got up from the vanity, the way he did the cocked hip and put his hand in his robe pocket, the way he straightened the robe when he sat, the way he poured tea, etc.

I just watched the sailfish case, and the judge got that one wrong. All mounted fish are fake - there's no such thing as an actual "stuffed" fish. They take a real fish, make a casting, and then make a fiberglass replica and paint it.

Maggie should not have gone on the raid not because she's pregnant - she should not have gone because she and Rick are the leaders and both leaders should not go out in battle (this isn't Star Trek where all of command goes on a mission).

curling iron, hair dryer, cart-a-jean-a (3 or 4 teams), not knowing what a ticket counter is, airport fan selfies, no airport hustle, dont know the difference between a gremlin and Gollum, pink emeralds (it's not mixed up Lucky Charms), dropping emeralds, only having a thong when with your *dad*, el raceo, yelling at the judge to tell them what's wrong with the shelter, not reading your clue, believing "just over there" This show has been on for over 10 years, but it doesn't seem like anyone has watched it before (or didn't absorb anything). Call me a hater, but I just don't see that these people are RACERS. There are so many "ordinary" people that would love to have a chance to run this race, and I still just see people who want more camera time. Plus the shrieking (Daddy! OMG!), crying, and male & female vocal fry still hurts my ears. And no one (even with a giant green emerald and nearly sliding down while being covered in mud) said that they were "hell and gone from Cartagena." I did appreciate that no one seemed to be a raging douche bag to their partner or to the other teams (at least not yet). When I realized I didn't care about anyone enough to wait for the nextlies, I decided that I should probably skip this season. Especially since Survivor looks like it's going to be fine (I was worried with Beast Mode Cowboy).

July 4 dog case came at the wrong time for me. Today, my husband and I were walking on a trail in our town (with signs clearly stating to keep your dog on a leash), and a completely out of control boxer charged at me. There was another dog and two women. One woman got the other dog pretty quick, but the other one couldn't get her dog to come back by voice. I kept backing up with my arms in the air (trying to look bigger and not give it anything to bite), and it kept jumping at me while my husband kept trying to get between us (that dog clearly hated me on sight from over 50 ft away, and I was pretty darn scared). My husband actually ended up calling the police before the woman could be bothered to grab and leash her dog (then he told the officer it was okay). Both women were really nasty and entitled in exactly the same way as the July 4 dog owners were acting. We later ended up stopping by the police station to ask for advice. The officer who took the 911 call was there, and he mentioned that he did stop by the park and didn't see anything, but that was because we were on the trail in the woods, not at the field area as he had thought. I was pretty impressed that he bothered to come by for such a minor event that had already de-escalated. We asked if it was legal in our town to carry pepper spray in the park in case something like this happened again. The officer said, "you are completely correct that dogs are supposed to be on a leash - you have the legal and moral high ground." We were expecting some kind of "but" to follow that kind of a start, but instead he said, "not only can you use pepper spray if a dog approaches you threateningly and not under direct owner control, but feel free to take out a .45 and shoot it between the eyes." Although I have a CPL, I have no desire to kill a dog (it's not the dog's fault that its owners are jerks), but I did get some pepper spray on Amazon order right away.

Personally I don't dislike this cast because they're famous. I dislike them because, as a group, they don't seem like good racers. They are stunt casting. I don't see any students of the game or people excited to see the world. I see people excited only to see other celebrities, have strangers recognize them, and crying to leave their homes. I miss seeing people with real relationships (a reason I also did not like the blind date season) as racers. I miss seeing people with different types of relationships. I miss seeing people with different jobs and history. I miss seeing different (but reasonable - yelling "who's fake playing" isn't an approach) approaches to problems. I miss seeing ordinary people representing all of us ordinary people getting to do something Amazing and appreciating the experience. Maybe what I dislike about this season is just all of the things it's not. And reality TV is deliberately made to have its audience either love or hate its stars. Apathy kills reality shows. I have had insta-love and insta-hate on nearly every show I've watched. A few times, I've reversed my opinion - sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. For example, I was prepared to love Justin because of his super fandom, but after crying at the first FF (or whenever something wasn't slightly going his way) and acting a complete douche when he was on top, it put him up with Brenden/Rachel and Jonathan (of Jonathan/Victoria) as my all time hated contestants. Stunt casting can occasionally be okay, but usually if you have to resort to tricks like that, you've lost the essence of a show - especially when the stunt becomes the ENTIRE show. Obviously CBS must need to appeal to a younger demographic for numbers reasons, and if turning to stunt casting gets them what they want, then good on them. But that's not the show I fell in love with. Sure, I'm an old fart wallowing in nostalgia for the good old days of my show, and I'm sure CBS won't miss me (just like they didn't miss me on the Brenchal seasons). But that doesn't mean I won't express my feelings in the tiny hopes that someone at the networks will listen and put my show back together again. ETA: My memory isn't what it used to be, but I think it took until season 5 before "famous" people were put into The Amazing Race as stunt casting.