dmmetler
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Posts posted by dmmetler
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My guess is that they wouldn't have nearly as many costumes if the TV show wasn't happening, nor would they have as many performances or travel as far.
Having said that, my DD has a friend on a similar team, and the parents have a lot of fundraisers. They park cars for big events like the county fair, they sell concessions at the local minor league baseball stadium, and stuff like that. The team contracts with the event, and the team parents work it, with the money they earn deposited into their child's account. I don't think many parents just write a check.
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I'm guessing the Southern Royalettes were created for the show, possibly at the request of the producers. I've seen PGA cheer (Pat Grey Academy-the studio they are out of) at competitions locally (and they're good). It seemed more like cheer routines to me (although they did pull back on the stunting compared to what they can do-which is reasonable on a gym floor without mats or a spring floor). If anything, I suspect their technique was too clean for Majorette, which may be where they fell down with the judges.
I wonder if they'll do the same thing with PGA that they did with the SupaStars, where they'll start popping up regularly with an eye to a spin-off.
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Even if John were salaried as the team coach, Daphne is not legally his daughter, and tuition waivers would apply only to family. And, FWIW, tuition waivers aren't a benefit at state schools here, anyway (although they are at some private colleges). Financial aid should be based on Regina's income, not John/Katherine's.
One thing that hasn't been mentioned, though-I imagine Daphne COULD get assistance from whatever Missouri calls their vocational rehabilitation program, and is possibly eligible for SSDI as well. She may be playing the "Deaf isn't disabled" thing, but the federal government considers it a permanent disability, and they have an incentive in getting adults with permanent disabilities the education they need to be self-supporting.
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I think I'll just forget season 5 happened. Seriously, Amy...huh???
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Not only that, but Daphne has magical lip-reading skills and is extremely intelligent, and has had a very supportive parent and a very, very good school situation. Contrast that to even Travis, and you can see how Travis may find deafness a lot more disabling as an adult than Daphne does. And most kids with any disability don't have a great self-contained school and community that fits their needs, nor a college program created just for them when they need it.
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It's time to start focusing on a new team. This one is starting to really play to the cameras and be annoying. The coaches, the moms, and the girls.
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I assume Lily is fluent in ASL vs BSL because the showrunners aren't aware (or are ignoring) that ASL, BSL and Auslan have far less overlap than American, British, and Australian English.
I also assume they went for DS rather than a genetic disability with the assumption that the audience knows what DS is, but would be less aware of, say, Fragile X syndrome, where a premutation passed to a daughter leads to a much higher chance of having the disease, and which can be tested for prenatally via amniocentesis. If Lily had a brother with DS, it's unlikely they would do an amnio on her at her age, but Fragile X would call for prenatal testing since she would have a very high probability of carrying the mutation. You'd still have the same level of drama as far as "should she go through with the pregnancy"-and I can't imagine there wouldn't be room to explain what Fragile X (or any other disease of the week) means just in dialogue.
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I'm torn on trio-gate. The kids and moms seemed to think that the concern was that they might not get 1st, and if that was indeed the concern, I'd say they should have gone for it. But at the same time, as a cheer mom, I've seen teams that simply weren't ready, and that's when injuries happen or when kids come off the mat in tears because they forgot halfway through. And I'm not convinced the trio wasn't in the latter category, where they just plain weren't ready to perform at all.
Leaving before awards is in poor form. I wonder if Lifetime is pushing for it, since it's played out on both Dance Moms and Bring It recently.
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Ava's costume for her solo looked obscene on her body. I know it actually covered everything, but in some ways it was worse than Maddie's for the Sia videos-in that, it was obvious there was a body stocking. Ava's seaweed covered just enough to make her seem more nude than she was. Not appropriate for a 12? Yr old, IMO.
Nia's dance looked good, and the skip would have had more impact if they didn't cut dances on the show anyway. I honestly didn't realize anything was cut out until Nia was talking to JoJo.
Maddie's dance, eh, nothing special. All of her dances choreographed by Abby/Gianna are interchangeable. Yes, she's good at doing it-she's dome the same dance in 3/4 of the episodes for the entire run of the show!
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I really wonder if the moms were told to ramp it up. It just seems like there's FAR more mama-drama.
And I hope Kayla is at least enrolled in college locally this fall. I hate to think that being Ms. D's assistant coach is as far as she goes.
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I wish Ricky's being valedictorian had been presented as his classmates/faculty voting him an honor instead of the highest GPA. I just can't buy Ricky's GPA being higher than, say, Lauren's brother. Ricky having a high SAT, I can believe-he's smart, and the SAT is not entirely prior knowledge. But given what the guy has been through in the last few years alone, the idea that he would never have just plain spaced out on an assignment or test, or that he would have been doing the weighted grades/classes needed to have the highest GPA while working a lot of hours, being a dad to John, living independently, and dealing with a newly sober and released from prison bio-mom just seems unlikely. Heck, just graduating on time is a major accomplishment.
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I started watching Season 4 this morning. As a pregnancy loss mom, I've been impressed with how Mercy's death has been portrayed. Adrian is going through a very typical grief process, and Everyone else's reactions are on point-from Ben wanting out of the relationship because he can't deal with Adrian's grief, to the adults expecting her to move on and not sure what to say, to her friends going on with barely a hiccup, to Adrian wanting another baby. That drive to have a baby in your arms is very, very strong. Most TV shows that go to the convenient miscarriage/stillbirth route don't really show the grief response past a very special episode.
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I got to the end of season 3 today. When I was in an infant loss group, there was a teen couple who had lost a baby very late in pregnancy, and the facilitator said that it's actually more common for young mothers to have complications than for women a few years older. So, it's good to see it addressed. I hope they handle it well in season 4.
One thing that I thought was actually good foreshadowing (a few episodes ago) was when Adrian was telling the guidance counselor that she expected to be back in school in about a week. For a teen mom who loses a baby, that's about what is expected-all the promised help and support evaporates, and the mom (and dad) face having to go back to a world that sees their loss of the baby as a momentary hiccup and in many ways a good thing-when their world has just been shaken, they're going through serious grief, and physical and hormonal after effects. If this is handled well, it could really be a good twist for the 4th season as Adrian and Ben have to recover in a world that doesn't allow them the freedom to grieve due to being teenagers.
I didn't like the whole pushed marriage thing-but this last episode really made up for it.
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How the heck did they let Lena leave the hospital after having lost a baby due to severe preeclampsia without monitoring her for depression, and probably getting her on antidepressants? Mid-late pregnancy losses take months for the hormones to stabilize, so post-partum depression is super-common, and add the reactive depression and grief process, and it's almost a given that you will go through what insurance terms a "major depressive episode" that requires help to resolve and get through. I really thought the show handled it fairly well as far as showing the loss and in showing the stress on the marriage, but when Lena and Stef were in therapy, at least, the therapist should have picked up on this. As should have her OB/GYN at the follow-ups (of which there would have been many, because of the after effects of PE).
I'm glad they're addressing it now. It needs to be said and showed, but it needed to be showed a long time ago in show time.
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https://www.facebook.com/unclebenscanada/videos/924898520890017/?fref=nf
Logan's been in Canada recently with Uncle Ben's Rice.
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The one thing I'm noticing is that there seem to be more "pros" than in the original series. I'm hoping that this was just the first episode. One thing I loved in the original was that we did have bots built by teenagers, in garages, out of parts from junkyards, etc.
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The captions said that Shia texted Maddie, and Sia texted Melissa.
Why was Maddie practicing on what looked like maybe a 6x6 piece of wood flooring? Wouldn't the studio have a tap studio with an appropriate floor?
Mackenzie's solo looked like a gymnastics floor exercise, down to the leotard and pigtails. Get the girl into a gymnastics gym or cheer gym, drop any pretense of a music "career", and let her succeed out of Maddie's shadow. When even her own mom can't be happy for her because it took away from the golden child, that's a sign of trouble.
Maddie's tap solo didn't seem super-advanced to me, unless they cut parts that were more technical (my DD is at a studio which focuses on tap/Jazz (with lots of ballet technique), and pretty much any of the tappers who are 10 or older could have done that pretty easily, and they're not dancing near the hours Maddie is.) I'm guessing that Maddie's tap technique simply isn't developing as much as it should because she's spending too much time on other stuff, and that's kind of sad because she does seem to really love tapping. It's an unforgiving dance style.
JoJo was on fire. She's just plain good at putting on a show. And that dates to pre-Abby because she had it on AUDC, too. I'm also really liking Jessalyn more and more-I think she's replaced Holly as the only sane mom.
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Idyllwild has a boarding program...or he could go to something like Interlochen (which is safely on the other side of the USA) or even enter Julliard early. It's really not uncommon for really, really good musicians to enter conservatory programs early.
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Kat is like so many kids I knew at music camps and in college. I feel for Brandon, but at the same time, he might as well get used to it. That's what the classical world is like-but at the same time, he doesn't need to impress Kat-he needs to impress his professors. Kat can't afford not to do her best with what he gives her, whether she thinks it's jejeune or not.
I actually think a therapeutic boarding school would be good for Sophia at this point. She is very brittle and fragile, and a separation and possible divorce means that she needs a lot of support and monitoring to insure compliance with medication that her parents are going to be less able to give.
I assume AJ is the next love interest for Callie-and putting him at Mike's avoids the problems with Brandon.
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I wish the primate keeper from the Tulsa zoo had made it through-just because there IS so much similarity between the ANW course obstacles and the stuff provided for captive primates for mental and physical stimulation . I tend to prefer the guys who have jobs that provide some of the training, as opposed to those for whom training is their business, or who just train and do nothing else. Although it is kind of nice to see a sport where the amateurs can beat the pros.
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What bugs me is that Callie being behind on credits should have been caught when she transferred in-and it would have been expected that a kid with that much prior instability would have been behind. Similarly, since Jude was behind to start with, it would have made more sense to put him in 6th grade classes, vs 7th, particularly since we've been shown Anchor Beach is a K-12 school (since that was how Stef met Lena when Brandon was going into Kindergarten).
I could kind of understand pushing ahead to graduate on time if Callie were going to age out of the system and be on her own without a hope of finishing high school, but she's in a stable, long-term situation with the Adams-Fosters and has a backup that would also see her through high school (since Robert is willing to pay for college for Callie, I can't imagine he wouldn't be willing to pay for a grade 13 to pick up two remaining credits, plus maybe some dual-enrollment classes or higher level electives. She could even go away to a private school with an official program for that last year and effectively have the same experience as her Anchor Beach classmates, because Robert has the money to make it happen).
I do wish ABC family would just let their lead teen female characters be happy for once. Having binge-watched and caught up on Switched at Birth before The Fosters, I'm starting to feel like Bay and Callie need to get together and form a support group!
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I'm glad that Lena talked to someone about her feelings on the loss of Frankie and the possible adoption of Ana's baby-and that she was told it was OK to NOTwant to adopt. This story is one which needs to be shown on TV, where often a miscarriage or stillbirth is seen as a way to have a pregnancy storyline without the nuisance of a baby, and everyone forgets it the very next episode.
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This episode had some great scenes! I loved Marianna going off on Brandon. She was absolutely right. I think her brother should have been proud of her for saving a girl's life and grateful that she didn't call Stef or Lena. Are we supposed to understand he was mad at his gf for taking the pills before they performed, and took it out on his sis? It's stupid that he would date a girl who's okay with recreational drug use anyway, given that his dad is an alcoholic. (I thought the show made it clear when she -and the others - were eating the pot brownies for 'inspiration' that it wasn't the first time they got high.) He's already had too much responsibility in being worried about his father over the years.
The only time Jesus is tolerable is when he's talking about his family and uncertainty about the future. Also, I think Marianna just wants a baby sibling and is excited at the idea of having a baby sister who's her own flesh and blood. I remember she was excited when Lena was pregnant, and thrilled to find out the baby was a girl. I got the impression she and Stef both thought - maybe this kind of makes up for the tragedy of losing Frankie? I noticed Lena was NOT okay with that insinuation. So now Lena doesn't want a baby that's not her own flesh and blood? Oookkkk.
I get why Callie figured the little girl would be happy to see Daphne - she's what, 2 years old? Callie assumes the girl is still attached to her bio mother. After all, Callie was really hurt when Jude's bio dad (who she thought was hers at the time, too), didn't come to see them when he got out of prison. But this is different because we know she didn't have another loving father figure in her life, before or after their dad went to prison. As for that guy running the foster place - I didn't detect any romantic/sexual interest in her. Seems like he's there to give her a perspective as someone who's also experienced foster care and has a functional adult life. He seemed curious as to why she's there and her involvement with Daphne's situation.
On the "Ana's baby/Frankie" thing, I'm really loving the direction this is taking because, having lost a baby in similar circumstances, one thing you hear frequently is "just have another baby" or "you can adopt a baby". The assumption that a new baby will replace the one you lost is very, very hurtful and hard to manage. You don't want another baby. You want your baby-the one you failed so badly. Even getting pregnant again doesn't resolve that loss and that need and those feelings (my 2nd child just finished elementary school-and I cried that night because she should have a big brother at the middle school next year, but she doesn't-12 It makes perfect sense that Marianna would see her half-sister as a way of solving the problems and, for her, it probably would. I could see Stef also seeing this as a possible solution. But for Lena, even the suggestion is going to cause flashbacks and grief reactions. And as Ana's pregnancy progresses, it's only going to get worse. If the baby ends up coming to them, less than a year after Lena lost her baby, it will hit her like a ton of bricks.
It is also possible that, due to the loss, Lena would not be considered an acceptable foster parent for an infant at this point. That can happen, too, and being turned down as a foster or adoptive parent BECAUSE of a loss and psychological response can be just as painful as a loss. If Ana offers them the baby, and social services will not allow the placement, or if Ana changes her mind, it would be another major loss for Lena.
I feel for both Daphne and Tasha's foster mom. After I lost my son, I decided not to pursue adoption because I couldn't imagine making another woman lose her child. No matter who "wins" in a case like that, someone loses. Badly.
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It's possible that Lena and Stef don't have the legal right to get Callie therapy, since she's still a ward of the court. It can be very, very hard to get foster kids the supports/services they need, even though it's painfully obvious that they need it. And Callie comes off as being quite capable and well adjusted (frankly, too capable and well adjusted, given her history), so she may not be a priority. The fact that Jude got therapy when he stopped talking and they talk about getting Brandon therapy makes me think that it's not that Stef and Lena wouldn't recognize that Callie's been through hell and needs help.
S04.E18: The Accommodations Of Desire
in Switched At Birth [V]
I'm just glad they didn't go the pregnancy loss route (although I guess there's still time). It's just too often used as an easy out on TV.