[The View: Week of 5/22/2023]

Guys, please remember to keep your discussions about politics and politicians related to the context it is discussed in on the show. If you disagree, do so in a civil and non-provocative manner. 

If you need to, re-familiarize yourself with our Politics and Be Civil policies.

[FBI: International - General Discussion]

On 4/19/2023 at 6:14 PM, Andyourlittledog2 said:

I had to stop watching last night.  I just hate these plots where the (usually) lead has a mortal enemy who will stop at nothing to get him/her. They always include crazy ass locations and situations and death defying stunts and almost killed but not quite scenes. It is so predictable and boring and although I like the show I am watching and the characters in it I simply could not care less about their nemesis or the convoluted plots the writers come up with to put our heroes in peril.  Enough already. All these kinds of shows have this crap.

I'm catching up, so a little late to the party but what bothered me the most about this particular plot was the fact that he went after Reines' girlfriend. Uh? So, someone kills your brother and you think, yeah, I'm going to revenge him by kidnapping some more or less random agent's girlfriend who I'm going to kill when said agent shows up instead of going after the agent who the guy I want to get back at had a relationship with? In what universe does that make sense?

I did like the episode in terms of team dynamic, though. I also liked that it wasn't the traditional "lone wolf" episode. Yes, Scott went at it alone but when agents normally do that, they go rogue whereas Scott was trusted to do this by Jamie and Smitty. So, that was a nice change.

On 4/19/2023 at 1:34 PM, Xeliou66 said:

Last night’s episode was just dull to me - too much personal stuff and I didn’t have a great memory of the previous episode from last season where the bad guy’s brother was killed, so it was kind of confusing. 

I had forgotten about that, too, and assumed it happened off-screen at some point. Oops. 😄

[S14.E21: New Beginnings (2)]

22 minutes ago, KittenPokerCheater said:

Hetty wasn't there- is Linda Hunt in poor health?

Not to my knowledge but she is 78 and, according to wikipedia, has hypopituitary dwarfism. I don't know what the latter means for her immune system or if she takes any medications that make her immune compromised but I understand if she wasn't comfortable taking the risk.

[Summer Baking Championship - General Discussion]

5 hours ago, kathyk24 said:

Who is creating these challenges? I don't want gelatine on my cake I thought we were done with the dumb challenges I've never seen water balloons on a cake. 

Did I hear it correctly, the didn't want to eat the coating chocolate because it wasn't appealing but never said a word about the gelatin balls? If so, it makes no sense. I don't like any of it but I find coating chocolate infinitely more appealing than gelatin balls.

 

8 hours ago, Grizzly said:

Christian was ahead of his time.

Well, the cakes have been around for at least a couple of years, so I wouldn't say he was ahead of his time. But, wasn't it his cake that they featured when they presented the challenge?

[The Baking Topic]

I was going to ask if there was any chance that @SilverStormm had made any Mother's Day cupcakes so we could get pictures. Then I remembered that the UK already celebrated Mother's Day. Too bad. 😞

[Love It Or List It - General Discussion]

On 5/10/2023 at 8:18 PM, jcbrown said:

Seriously, who likes to wash towels so much they think that keeping them on open shelves next to the floor is a good idea?

It's like open shelves. I don't think they're practical especially if you keep dishes on there. (Unless you only have two plates, two bowls, two cups, etc and use them every day or every other day). But they might still catch grease or whatever other particles accumulate in the kitchen air when you're cooking.

I'm generally not a fan of open anything. Not only does it mean that whatever you keep there is prone to collecting dust much quicker, you also always have to keep it neat and tidy because you can't just shut a door on it and I think that wastes (valuable) space.

[Spring Baking Championship - General Discussion]

When Luke's donuts didn't work out, I thought for sure he was going to go home. I'm glad he didn't because while Molly was a good baker, she just didn't bake with the same precision.

What I don't understand is why Luke or anyone really, would try to do something with a batter that they haven't tested before in a competition where they have a time limit and can't make endless repeats. It has never made sense to me. Something is bound to go wrong.

Why did Molly not use a thinner piping tip? That lace did not look like lace. I don't want to use the word ugly because it was not but it looked inelegant and massive (at least for what it was supposed to be). I guess, not delicate would be the best way to describe it? (I'm lacking the English words).
If Molly had used a thinner piping tip, hers would have been gorgeous but that's exactly the reason why I didn't want her to advance because it was reflective of how her baking looked in general compared to the other three.

With that said, Luke's didn't look much better which is why I thought he was going to go home.

With regards to Kardea's criticism that the donuts were cake-y: can baked donuts even taste differently? Isn't it kind of a given that they taste cake-y and are they technically still donuts or simply cake/muffins/cupcakes in a donut shape?

Christian and his sugar dome: see above. Why would he try something he has never tried before, especially something that requires some serious skill and hours and hours of practice? There is also a different and probably easier method to make a dome, so why didn't he just do that?
Also, why couldn't he answer Kardea's question? She simply wanted to know if he was happy with what he had made. That's a yes or no question and being able to be critical of one's work is necessary to improve. Luke was well aware of how his dessert looked and he made no secret out of it.

Clement's dessert looked absolutely amazing. That was a work of art.

Luke's, well... Oh, and speaking of Luke, who came up with the phrase "Last Minute Luke" for that final episode? It irritated the hell out of me.

I liked that the cake requests were made by couples whether they were actually engaged or not. I wish they would have given more nuanced criticism (eg, I'm in love with this aspect of the cake, this is how we would have loved it even more) and that their criticism would have weighed into the judging.

All three cakes had aspects that I didn't like, so I can accept Luke's win. I didn't catch all of what the couple told him that they were looking for but the flowers he put on the cake were beautiful. I just wish he had air-brushed or sprayed the Eiffel Tower metallic silver. It would have made it stand out. Too bad he didn't have time to make it as a topper and drape a few flowers around it.

I agree that Clement's thick branch was too thick. I also thought it was weird that he made the branches look like those of a climbing plant instead of proper tree branches.

I think "Boho" is one of those terms that is so loosely defined that you can do a lot of things with it while no one knows what actually falls under it, so I don't really know if the cake Christian make was "Boho" or not. I do like metallic bronze as a color but I can't say that his cake left me speechless or anything.

 

On 5/8/2023 at 9:01 PM, susannot said:

Can't believe that all 3 couples were white and hetero.

I assumed couples could apply and they chose them according to their cake flavors or something but I could be wrong, of course.

 

On 5/8/2023 at 10:21 PM, littlebennysmom said:

Christian's resistance to immediately remix batter while being unsure of the ingredient amounts he added was just ridiculous.  Lost all that time baking trashcan cakes for no good reason. 

I didn't get it. If you heard him, you'd think he was already half-way through the whole process and not still measuring ingredients. I wonder if something about it was staged and/or edited to make it sound worse than it actually was.

Regardless, he again did not or could not admit to anything going wrong during the judging.

 

On 5/8/2023 at 10:23 PM, Ohmo said:

I'm going to be the cranky-ass poster.  No way  do I think Luke should have won. The judges need to stop judging a ten-week competition like it's one episode of Christmas Cookie Challenge.

That is the format it is judged as though. I wish they would factor in the first challenge as well and not base everything on one bake. Everyone can screw up one bake. So, give points for the pre-heat and add them to the points you give for the second challenge. Or just consider it when you do the final judging, I really don't care how they do it as long as they do it.

 

On 5/8/2023 at 10:23 PM, Ohmo said:

This season is the second year in a row that we've had two highly skilled French pastry chefs and neither won the competition.

Being an excellent pastry chef doesn't automatically make you an excellent cake-baker though.

 

On 5/8/2023 at 11:06 PM, laredhead said:

Clement has mentioned several times that he is unfamiliar with many of the things they have been asked to make.  He has said he doesn't make wedding cakes, doughnuts, and a few other things that are common in American bakeries.  I wonder what he bakes?  Eclairs? Tartes?

He mentioned tartes, I think. French bakeries also sell tartlettes, eclairs, of course, petit-fours, macarons. Their display is very different from what you would find in an American bakery.

 

On 5/9/2023 at 9:05 AM, Dottie D said:

I was so confused about Christian's cake.  Twice the couple mentioned they wanted a chocolate cake (once in their intro, and again when they were at his station).  How is it that they didn't get a chocolate cake?!  Or maybe I missed something.

That he didn't make a chocolate cake kind of fits with the impression that I got of Christian. He didn't want to make one, so he didn't make one.

 

On 5/9/2023 at 10:48 AM, DEL901 said:

I thought the thick branch looked like a snake…and Duff was right, the flowers needed a white dot of something at the centre.  

Given that Duff does what he does, I'm sure he knows that Clement simply would not have had the time to make those white dots. He could have said it but he should have added that he knows it was more or less impossible to do.

 

On 5/9/2023 at 5:36 PM, Ohmo said:

I had Luke as solidly third.  If Christian would have won, I would have been OK with it.  What FN is trying to sell is that Luke and Jalessa are better than Romy and Clement.  That is absolutely NOT true!  (I want a bake-off between Romy and Clement.)

Since the bakers get a spread in the magazine, I wouldn't be surprised if the winner is determined by who they can sell the best.

 

On 5/9/2023 at 7:06 PM, bilgistic said:

Christian doesn't know what "boho" means.

As I mentioned above, does anyone, really?

 

On 5/10/2023 at 1:41 PM, lgandkihei said:

 Plus, if he's a baking instructor in real life, I really would think he'd know how to construct a tiered cake that doesn't lean.  Granted, I don't know how, but I'm just an idiot viewer, not a bakery instructor!

I don't think I've ever seen a multi-tiered cake on that show that wasn't leaning, so I'm beginning to wonder if they have cake supports available for the bakers. But if they do then the leaning is most certainly not the bakers' fault but due to the time constraint and how warm it is in the studio. Even a well-supported cake can lean when it's not properly cooled and in an environment that's far too warm for its non-cooled condition.

[Love It Or List It - General Discussion]

19 minutes ago, ECM1231 said:

But this wasn't the case. The new value of the renovated home was $1,250,000. That's a long way off from 1.6K, or even the 1.4K that they had budgeted for the new home.

As I understand it, the budget is based on the mortgage they can get and if they manage to sell the house for what it is said to be worth after renovation, they're going to have more money in the bank and therefore, they can get a higher/better mortgage rate.

So, the new value doesn't have to cover the purchase price of the new home (I don't think it usually does), it just needs to help them get a higher mortgage.

[Spring Baking Championship - General Discussion]

8 hours ago, libgirl2 said:

But at least with the ice cream sandwich, he his flavors were pretty much there. 

That's a question I had. The judges mentioned the rosé flavor and they mentioned hibiscus. But hibiscus was not part of his cocktail. So, were the other flavors there? You'd think after Luke did not do so well when he did grapefruit the first time, they'd mention the grapefruit part in some way but they didn't. That was weird.

But Molly did have all the flavors. They said the rosé flavor was subtle but subtle still means it was there and they mentioned the other two flavors as well.

I had hoped they wouldn't keep Molly just because she was the last woman but even though her dessert was not as fancy, I got the impression that overall, her dessert was better.

 

7 hours ago, Shenanigan7070 said:

Or maybe he's just not the type of person who likes to make excuses for their work.

I wouldn't consider it an excuse if he'd acknowledged the lack of tulips and been like "I wanted to do something else but it is what it is". 🤷‍♀️

Something that just occurred to me: what was he doing while the second cake was baking? Wouldn't he have done the cake's filling while the first cake was baking?

 

7 hours ago, tracyscott76 said:

I was only barely paying attention, so take this for what it's worth, but I'm guessing the decision to keep Molly had less to do with her specifically or the fact that she was the last woman left, and more to do with their insistence on doing a bake-off in the final 4, stretching the finale to 2 hours.

That's what I thought as well.

 

8 hours ago, Rammchick said:

I think this is down to the editing monkeys. 

Maybe but Christian is the baker who never told the judges anything and always acted like what he's presenting is exactly what he intended to present. He never admitted to any mistakes and when he made up stories like the one when he baked the ice cream cones, he always did so sounding dead serious. With other bakers, they may make something up as well but you can tell that they're kind of making it up because something went wrong.

[Love It Or List It - General Discussion]

4 hours ago, ECM1231 said:

Now, here's what I don't understand. After renovation, the new home value was $1,250,000. Their budget for the new home had been 1.4 million. David found them a fantastic home. It did have that walkout basement level and a pool and gorgeous backyard, facing a forest. Beautiful outdoor entertaining area. I probably would have bought the house, too. BUT, but but... NO MENTION that the new home was $1,600,000. That's 200K over their budget!  That 25K to have outdoor access to the yard was a drop in the budget to cough up, compared to $200,000.

Usually, if the final home ends up being over the budget the increase in value of the house makes up for it. Of course, the home owners have to get the price David says their house is worth first.

 

3 hours ago, Chit Chat said:

He irritated me!

Glad I'm not the only one. There was just something about him... That they listed didn't surprise me at all. I think Hillary could have rebuilt the whole house and he would have moved.

It also irritates me when they ask for things but then don't want to invest the money.

I loved Hillary's "no, seriously, what's my budget" when she heard how much money she had to get the list done. She either is a very good actress or that was her sincere reaction when she was told.

 

[Spring Baking Championship - General Discussion]

I'm not a fan of alcohol in baking but that aside, I liked both challenges.

I was really impressed by Clement's shortcake. It looked exactly like the illustration. And the final product was insanely clean. The strawberries that were visible looked like there wasn't a smudge of pastry cream on them!

I thought Kardea's criticism of Luke's cake truffles was ridiculous. Duff's criticism was fair, tulips are rich with color and most of them are solid color, too. But it is common in baking that the decoration takes more time than the actual baking. Every single fondant or buttercream decorated cake takes more time to decorate than bake. (Supermarket cakes may be an exception 😉) Every decorated cookie does. A set of cupcakes does. That's why these things are so expensive (even without the surcharge for the word wedding).
I've liked her criticism so far but for some reason, this one made me mad. Maybe because it made her look incredibly ignorant and like she was desperately looking for something negative to say.

I'm not sure why Nancy went so gaga over Molly's tulip. Other bakers would have been told that this is the semi-final and they have to do more than cut out a shape with a cookie cutter and trace the outline with buttercream.
I also don't think that this was an example of how a naked cake should look. Naked cakes are usually filled precisely to the edge of the cake. Her cakes looked like she put some filling in the middle then set on the top. (I don't blame her, given the time constraint, I probably would have done it that way, too).

I liked the colors of Christian's cake. Yes, for a competition like that the cake needed to be straight but that aside, I thought it looked delicious.
I don't understand why he insisted on making the chandelier and didn't concentrate on making tulips. That made no sense. I also don't understand why he acted as if everything went smoothly when the judges criticized his work. Why didn't he say that he ran out of time because he redid the cake? Why didn't he say that he just wanted to get some flowers on there? These are the kind of things that make me not like him. It gave me the impression that he didn't think the criticism was justified and/or expected that he wouldn't get criticized for that when he knew full well that this was coming.

It was a nice recovery for him in the final challenge, although, again, I didn't like like that he apparently couldn't bear the thought of someone else having such a good looking dessert so he just had to make something else.
But his dessert did look pretty.

I definitely would have kept the flavors Clement was handed as well. They seemed a very good combination with regards to taste. Elderberry is a rather delicate flavor and might be easily overshadowed by something else whereas rosewater, pomegranate and rosé are all robust flavors that I think can be balanced well and compliment each other.
The dessert itself looked spectacular. I know that Duff doesn't like seeds but having seeds stuck between your teeth is not valid criticism for a pastry competition. The plate definitely looked like something you'd get served in a very fancy and expensive restaurant or hotel. Or on a luxury cruise.

Contrary to that, Luke's dessert looked rather underwhelming for someone who said that plated desserts is what he does. The judges also didn't say anything about the prosecco and the grapefruit juice. They said they tasted the rosé but not a word about the rest. So, did they not taste it?
I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't. When they previewed what every baker was doing, I thought that Luke's concept wasn't smart and that at least one of the three ingredients would be drowned by another or the other two. Molly had the much better concept by making a rosé cake and then adding the other two ingredients into the mousse.

While Molly's certainly didn't look like it could compete with the others (although, it did look like a tasty and fun summer dessert), I'd say she should have had the upper hand based on taste. Her rosé may have been subtle but her flavors were all there. Luke's didn't seem to be. Additionally, the visual just wasn't there with his plate.

I'm not surprised that Christian won and I can live with that. Both his and Clement's dessert looked excellent, so without tasting either, it's hard to know which one was the better one or if one even was better.

[FBI: International - General Discussion]

I just watched the episode that dealt with the acid attack against the ballerina in Vienna and wow, it was worse than I thought it would be. I think that was their most unrealistic and full-of-clichés episode to date.

Given the lack of research this show has shown, I'm not even sure if they used a fictitious ballet company on purpose or if they thought Vienna->Emperor->Emperial Theater.

In any case, ballet companies don't train in the actual theater. Studios are usually elsewhere.
Women don't all wear skirts and leotards like many little girls do. Some do. Others wear various forms of sweatpants, yoga pants, shorts etc.

Dancers are in the studio during rehearsal and unless they have reserved the studio, other dancers don't just get to tell them to leave. (And there was no reason for the dancers to have reserved the studio in the episode because they were rehearsing a ballet staged by the company). Of course, they can ask nicely but why would they?

Where were the teacher or choreographer or artistic director or two of the three or all of the above and the pianist for that rehearsal?

A company that big and prestigious as they said this one was has more than one principal dancer. (The Vienna State Ballet currently has 5). There are no "understudies". Rather, depending on how many performances of a ballet are planned, there are a number of principals who learn the role and will perform the lead throughout the run. So, if one principal can't dance on a particular night, another who has learned the role anyway and was scheduled on another night will fill in. Soloists can also learn and dance the role if they have the skill.

Prima ballerina or principal dancer is not a negotiable title. You get promoted to principal at the end of a season or between seasons and you get a contract as a principal that following season. I guess whether they can put her into the corps de ballet depends on how the contract is written but they can't strip her of the title without cause. So, the dancer would be paid as a principal and if they continued to not get principal roles, they could argue they're discriminated against. Plus, no company would promote someone to principal and then not use them as a principal because they'd be a principal short and, as mentioned, they'd likely be paying the dancer as a principal. I'm not sure what the writers think but this is a job like every other job and the titles are reflective of promotions just like in every other job.

A good dancer is not automatically a good choreographer nor do all dancers want to become choreographers. I almost find that the most offensive because it just feels so dismissive of dancer as a real profession.

I think if I had been the ballerina I would have thrown acid into Vo's face myself after that speech about how don't always get to do what you're talented in. Or, at the very least, I would have told her to get the hell out of my room in no unmistakable terms. I'm sure it was well-meant advice but Vo so missed the mark and showed that she had no idea of what the dancer would have gone through at that point. (The writers obviously didn't either). Dance dominates the life from a very early age on and if someone is as dedicated and passionate about ballet as the dancer was then she would still have been in a stage of denial that her career was now over and not ready for any kind of advice. And likely even less so for any advice that comes from a complete stranger. 

And lastly and not related to ballet, I doubt that they would have been allowed to continue to investigate the moment someone in either government realized that a member of the Austrian government was involved, not to mention someone who was undercover. That could have prompted all kinds of diplomatic incidents and I doubt the US government would thought that was worth the risk just because the First Lady cared. 

Aside from that I did like the episode. ;-)

In all seriousness though, I did like the twist and that it ended up not having anything to do with ballet.

 

[FBI - General Discussion]

On 4/18/2023 at 10:32 PM, Xeliou66 said:

This was decent - while the bomb plots are not original, I wish they would do something else for a little bit we’ve had so many “terrorists threatening to blow something up” plots this year -

Yes, when it turned out that the truck was smuggling bomb parts instead of drugs I thought that it would have been nice had it actually been drugs. But I guess, DEA would have taken over in that case?

I think it was still a good episode. While it was the primary crime and they were chasing a bomber, it still felt kind of secondary. As in, the suspense came from many other aspects of the episode and not necessarily the bomb itself.

On 4/18/2023 at 10:32 PM, Xeliou66 said:

the episode was pulled off well enough and I always love a good Jubal centric episode so it was nice seeing him take center stage again.

I'm usually not a fan of centric episodes and even less so when OA has a prominent role as he tends to be a character who does the opposite of what he's told and gets away with it but this was actually a good episode. Great dynamic between all the major players, whether it was Jubal and OA or OA and Isobel or Jubal and Isobel, they were all good scenes.

On 4/18/2023 at 10:32 PM, Xeliou66 said:

And while it was also predictable that Jubal’s old friend would turn out to be no good, it was still an interesting enough plot, and the look of sick horror on Jubal’s face when he realized his friend was guilty was very well acted by Sisto.

I agree, from the time that the bomber accused his former partner until the very end, we got some A+ facial acting by Sisto. His facial expressions said it all.

I loved the very end when Isobel realized that Jubal was staring at the liquor and steered him away from it. I hope the two of them get more scenes together like they did in this episode.

On 4/18/2023 at 10:32 PM, Xeliou66 said:

I’m kind of surprised given the circumstances that Isobel didn’t call in Remy and the MW team, since there was a fugitive on the loose and an all hands on deck situation. I get the actors weren’t available for another crossover but a mention would’ve been nice. Maybe they were out of town on another case.

That's why I don't like those crossovers. More often than not the agents or detectives worked a similar plot the week before and didn't need the help of the other characters from the other shows, so it makes no sense to have them there. I get that it's difficult but I'd prefer if they tried to arrange crossovers when they fit naturally, like it would have done here.

[S02.E18: Bread Crumbs]

Why do networks find it so appealing to start an episode with something that will happen later in the timeline and then have the so-and-so-many-hours earlier after the opening credits? What's the point?

Also, what was the point of including Alex in this episode? I thought Ernie said Alex might know something but he never asked Alex anything, did he? So, why did Alex need to be excluded? Yes, it was nice of Ernie to think of him but I don't think it made much sense to tell Alex at this point and telling him didn't add anything to the story.

If you're law enforcement and/or military on Hawaii, wouldn't you know the areas terrain and therefore know that caves/holes in the ground leading to caves are a possibility and that your best chance at finding someone who's missing is probably a large search party that includes rescue dogs?

I'm also a bit puzzled about the flashbacks. Not sure what purpose they served exactly. They sort of tied into the story but it's not like they were needed to advance the story.

Was Jane checked out by paramedics? Wouldn't she likely have a cracked rib or two or would the vest have protected her? After she fell, I thought she may have fractured her pelvic bone, considering where she seemed to be in pain and how much pain she looked to be in.

With that said, I'd like to echo the positive comments that have been made: the tight timeline was great as was that they immediately caught on to what was happening and the team dynamic was good. I also liked that apart from the opening sequence they didn't include any unnecessary drama. It was all very cut-to-the-chase, characters were injured but alive, the injuries were treated as best as they could be treated, everyone was aware of their predicament but no one was hanging by a thread and bleeding out any second while the team frantically was searching for them and finding them with only seconds to spare.

I liked a lot of the dialogue and how they set things up as well (eg, at the beginning when Kai was level-headed enough to tell Boone that he needed to get back to HQ as acting boss. The conversation felt logical and realistic as did many others). Boone also seemed convincing in his role as acting boss; he knew what to do but he was still assisted by everyone on the team because he's not usually in charge. (Although, I liked him in charge but that's probably largely due to him being my favorite character 😉)

The episode had a really good pace. It was over before I knew it.

 

[Spring Baking Championship - General Discussion]

8 hours ago, Frost said:

I liked Christian just fine at the beginning of the show, but now he really is coming across as smug to me.  I hope he doesn't win (since I'm vindictive like that 😆).

I don't think that the judging of Christian's bakes was always justified. Bakers have been eliminated of not sticking to the theme and he's interpreted the theme quite vaguely several times (his cake yesterday was one of those examples, other bakers have gotten "but it's not really what we asked for" before) but that aside, he can bake quite well. While I don't like how he comes across, if he delivers bake-wise like he delivered up until now, I would be able to make peace with a win of his. Likewise Molly, although, I think that she's the weakest of the remaining bakers.

 

16 minutes ago, rlc said:

I wish they would have played around with the cheeses and not all have used cream cheese. Ricotta or goat cheese would have been interesting.

My mom loves cheesecake and I made three different American cheesecakes for her for her birthday: one was more or less a regular one with cream cheese and chocolate, one with ricotta and greek yoghurt and one with cream cheese and sour cream. (They all were delicious but that last one was to die for!)

[Love It Or List It - General Discussion]

I'm pretty sure they're back in Canada. You can find those housing prices in cities in the US as well but I agree that the houses look different (they look like they did when Property Brothers started out and filmed in Canada) and last week and this week both featured shots with snow.

[Spring Baking Championship - General Discussion]

I liked the first challenge much better than the second and felt the first would have been worthy of being the second.

What a coincidence: Josh says he would really like to win a first challenge et voilà, he wins it. And with an eclair he died red, no less.

I thought Josh's dessert was the weakest of them all. I don't think adding food coloring to dough and cream cheese to a filling makes something a mash-up of two desserts. Biting into that eclair, you wouldn't really have any of the characteristic tastes of a red-velvet cakes. The eclair also looked like the dough didn't rise properly. It wouldn't surprise me if it didn't given the amount of food coloring he would have had to add to achieve that color. I'd say it's next to impossible that dough consistency wasn't affected.

The blondie-tiramisu sounded like a well-done mash-up of two desserts, I just didn't like the heart shape. It looked kind of boring/generic.

I thought Christian and Clement had the best desserts. They were minimalist with regards to decorations but so were the others and they well executed and they delivered in taste and combining of two desserts. I expected either to win the challenge.

I really disliked the second challenge; adding spices does not make the cheesecake international. Aside from Christian who made a cake with cheesecake-filling and not a cheesecake, they all made American cheesecake that they added international spices to. But the cheesecakes were American cheesecake. (As was Christian's filling, I believe).
When they announced the challenge, I expected that the bakers would have to make cheesecakes popular in/original to foreign countries. I know of three different ones - American, German, Japanese. Four, if you count that there are two kinds of cheesecakes which are popular in Germany, five, if you include the savory cheesecake I know of that is apparently popular in Israel. So, if they had done a little bit of research, I'm sure they could have come up with a few more truly international cheesecakes. 

With that said, during the episode, I expected Josh or Molly to be eliminated, during the judging, I thought Clement would be the baker who would be going home tonight. The criticism sounded very negative, although, I'm not really sure what Nancy was trying to say by if he had just used the guava it would have continued to be really smooth? Uh? I feel like we were missing huge chunks of conversation because Nancy's comment suggests that Clement said something to her about what else he used. Did anyone catch if he actually used ricotta in the cheesecake?

I'm glad Clement got to stay. While I think he's presented better looking cakes, his cheesecake and decorations did look incredibly neat. (Oh, and what a coincidence that Nancy would have liked to have a flag on a pole since that didn't work out).

Christian's and Luke's cheesecakes did look really good as well. I was pleasantly surprised that Kardea asked how he used the olive oil; it's difficult to include it in a way that you can taste it (I mean, it's olive oil in a cake, you don't really want to taste it) and her question seemed to acknowledge that. I liked that.

I liked Luke's concept but I did prefer the look of Christian's cake. It was clean and whimsical and just pretty. On the other hand, I guess, that Luke's cake wasn't as precise fit with the celebration he was inspired by. And I'm absolutely okay with his win. He deserved it.

[Love It Or List It - General Discussion]

I'm surprised the couple stayed. Hillary put up a good front when she and David first walked through the house but I think she knew that it was going to be an uphill battle. Even with the budget, there was a lot to do and she only had so much square footage to work with. (Although, I think she did a really good job within the space, still, it was limited space).

Sometimes, I'd love to know what David and Hillary really think when they first walk through a house. David always has to make the house look bad and Hillary always has to sound positive but I'd love to hear them have a real conversation about the house.

[FBI - General Discussion]

On 4/18/2023 at 12:14 AM, MerBearHou said:

Nothing else was on tonight so I stumbled upon season 1 of FBI on ION.  It seems so long ago that Sela Ward was in the lead role in the JOC (maybe SAIC?).  Seems so strange.  Also wow, in just the 3 episodes I’ve watched tonight, it was the Maggie-can-do-it-all show and she took the lead in every single story.

Didn't they mention that she was the senior field agent in one of the early/earliest episodes? It would make sense that she takes the lead in that case. (That doesn't mean that they couldn't have written more balanced stories).

What bothers me most about these kind of things is that they establish something and then they forget about it or change it out of convenience and things like chains of commands get muddled. Often times, it creates situations that don't really make sense anymore because it changes the dynamic and/or the character etc.

[Spring Baking Championship - General Discussion]

8 hours ago, meep.meep said:

I think they like it, and I don't think it was easy to make and present. 

Aside from tempering the chocolate (which they all had to do), there wasn't more to it than what they showed: pipe lines into a bowl, let it set and remove it. Sure, there was the risk of breakage involved but with regards to skill level, it was fairly simple. But while it may not have been all that difficult to make, it was still effective and I think that's a skill in itself: knowing how you may be able to achieve something that looks good even though you have to keep it simple.

They showed too little of how Josh made that flower to know what exactly he did but I'd say Clement's decoration required the most skill when it comes to chocolate work.

 

9 hours ago, Maya said:

 Luke should have gone. He made berry oatmeal muffins and didn’t decorate them. Were those the ones where Nancy said she liked the paper muffin cups??

I thought that was Clement but I'm not sure.

[Spring Baking Championship - General Discussion]

4 hours ago, MerBearHou said:

I know…probably not.  Maybe I’m thinking of GBBO when they say things like that about having a bad first round.

Since the German version of GBBO adds up the points from all three challenges, I'm assuming GBBO is the same. Here, it never seems to matter.

I wish we knew. I also wish they had a point system and if they do have one then I wish we could see it.

[Spring Baking Championship - General Discussion]

It was such a pity that April sent home. At first, she reminded me of the baker from last year's holiday baking championship (the one who had to make two bakes several times) but it turned out that she was much more skilled. Maybe she was just insecure at first. I like Christian and Molly less but both had better bakes and decorations today.

I thought the critique of April's muffins was mean. How did her strawberries differ from whatever it was that Christian had topped his muffins with? April made wafer-flower petals, she didn't just spoon something on top and yet, hers was too simply and they not only didn't critique Christian for his simple decoration, they also sort of whistled right past the Christmas-look. And boy, did his muffins look like Christmas!

I have never had a Bloody Mary and I have no idea if Christian's muffins truly had the potential to taste well or not but I had difficulties keeping track of all the ingredients. It sounded like a lot and it sounded like a lot of different stuff that you'd normally avoid mixing together.

I was pleasantly surprised that they did taste the bacon in the bacon-fig muffins. Usually, they don't taste it in that kind of a situation.

I'm not a fan of muffins. I tend to find them rather dry compared to cupcakes but I really would have loved to taste Molly's muffins.

The pies were a mixed bag and again, they whistled right past Christian's no-skill-required dome. I thought it looked pretty regardless and it wouldn't bother me if the judges were consistent. But April gets critiqued for simple decorations, other bakers have been told that this is the XYZ Championship, so they need to bring it and do better but Christian can do a dome that wasn't even in one piece and not get told that he needs to do better? Why not?
Likewise, Molly's chocolate nests.

Christian's pie filling also looked like it hadn't set properly.

Why didn't April do more? Did they show that? I know she said something about making colorful flowers and I believe she had colorful flowers but she had just stuck them into the pie and I was a bit confused as to why. Did she run out of time?

I liked Luke's idea and it's a pity it ended up looking a bit rough.

Clement's and Josh's pie looked absolutely stunning. They were both in a league of their own when it came to pie making and the chocolate decorations. Yes, Clement's flower wasn't a spring flower and more of an abstract flower but there's some major chocolate skill involved in creating that. More so than in what Josh created because Josh used a mold. (Although, I completely understand that he did given the time constraints).

Both pies seemed perfect with regards to taste.

I really enjoyed Duff's critique during this episode. I thought it had the most substance of the three (he was talking about texture and flavors etc and not just about his preferences or if he liked something; it seemed very constructive) and to date!

3 hours ago, BookWitch said:

Do they taste their food as they're making it? The girls should have know their crusts weren't tasting right. 

Tasting pie crust is tricky, though. You kind of depend on having a piece of crust leftover somewhere, somehow, but I think they both had crusts that were perfectly fitted to the pie form.

 

3 hours ago, BookWitch said:

Josh went through all that trouble to make that chocolate cage thing and no one at it. I would  have wanted some at that too. I've never heard of ruby chocolate. Is it good?

The cocoa bean ruby chocolate is made out of is a fairly new discovery. I saw that not too long ago; they thought for a long time that there are only a few kinds of cocoa beans/cocoa trees but realized they were wrong and are currently rediscovering trees/beans that have been around for a while but weren't really known.
Whether it's good probably depends on what you like in a chocolate. My dad who loves milk chocolate and likes dark(er) chocolate (but not too dark) doesn't like ruby chocolate. (He also doesn't like white chocolate). My mom and I really like ruby chocolate.
It has a natural fruit-y note to it. It's hard to describe what it tastes like; I guess, you can compare it to mixing (white) chocolate with raspberry?

 

2 hours ago, MerBearHou said:

 Agreed that the raw bacon should have been more of a ding on Clement’s overall score for the day.  Sorry to see April go — she sure did not do well in either heat.  

Do scores from the first challenge matter when it comes to elimination? Since they announce a winner of the pre-heat, I have always been under the impression that the elimination is based on the second challenge only.

[Lucifer - General Discussion]

I think Season 3 was the worst. 1, 2 and 5 are my favorites. Season 4 was interesting but

Spoiler

I wish they had gone into a different direction with it. I thought Eve and Lucifer had great chemistry and an interesting relationship and I felt there was so much potential in exploring their dynamic (without creating the story of how they each became someone they didn't like when with each other).

 

[Law & Order: SVU in the Media]

14 hours ago, wknt3 said:

Damn you Dick Wolf Productions and NBC! How am I supposed to make fun of you when you keep taking our sarcastic suggestions as literal notes? Admit it - if I told you they were bringing Rollins back for a guest spot and making it an OC crossover with the shocking revelation being that she's pregnant you would assume it was satire about how they were out of ideas. I wonder if the big finale shocker is another "unforeseeable" hostage situation with the possibility of everyone but Ice T and Mariska leaving due to PTSD to provide leverage for contract renegotiations/cast cuts?

Isn't that pretty much where all NBC Dick Wolf shows have been going lately? Or rather for a while?

[FBI - General Discussion]

I just caught the rerun of the episode where they caught Vargas which I hadn't seen before. I had initially liked Rina and hated that they killed her off but that episode changed my mind with regards to liking Rina; she tells Jubal that they offered her the Acting position instead of Isobel because of Isobel's handling of the Vargas case then Rina makes the exact same decision, gets saved by Isobel from following through and when she gets offered the job permanently, she accepts instead of telling the higher-ups that credit for Vargas' arrest goes to Isobel and her team and them alone? Yeah, I really dislike people who take credit for things other people did.

And if that wasn't enough, she tries to exploit her personal relationship with Jubal and wants him to spy on his boss for the benefit of her career. I really wanted Jubal to dump her at the end of the episode and I wish he would have gotten the chance.