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Eolivet

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Everything posted by Eolivet

  1. Has anyone producing this show ever watched a spy movie in their life? How does winning a challenge make you a "double agent?" You say that word, but I don't think, etc. It's even more interesting that as Big Brother takes over more of the show, the show gets more like Big Brother, with the voting in secret. However, I give that "we know who voted for who" twist to last maybe another week before people start burning votes and hiding their alliances. I wish that every last reality show this year didn't feature an obnoxious group of newschoolers who ran the game, though. I'm over it. Let the oldschoolers foil their plans at least once. Maybe this is one group of oldschoolers who won't be led like lambs to the slaughter, and one newschooler alliance that will implode on itself. But: 2020, so I don't hold out great hope.
  2. I think others have touched on it, but what hit me when I saw George is what the show has been missing: normalcy. George was a regular guy. Normal. Down-to-earth. He was the proverbial everyman, to me, and when the show lost him, they lost that perspective. I can't tell you how much I needed to see the guy who personified normalcy, in the middle of a COVID episode. Because nothing feels normal. But George was normal. And like Meredith saw George, even through a dream/hallucination, maybe that means we can get normalcy back someday.
  3. I missed this ... does it seem like they're going to hook up? I've been manifesting this into the universe for a few months now, for the lulz. Curious if it might actually happen.
  4. "N95 masks for dogs" when healthcare workers still don't have them, and actual people can't have access to them since they're supposed to be for healthcare workers, aged really, really poorly even in a few months since this was taped (you could tell it was the spring because of the wildfires). I get they couldn't edit it out since it was the point of the product, but ... yikes.
  5. For David Chang's million-dollar question, I would've thought it was Arthur, but only because I thought Arthur was the latest among those presidents. I knew it had to be around turn of the century, thanks to a line from the Dowager Countess in Downton Abbey season 1: "I couldn't have electricity in the house. I wouldn't sleep a wink!" and that was 1912. I'd also forgotten (or maybe it's a new thing) that they turn off the music entirely at the million-dollar question, so it's just a heartbeat. Spooky.
  6. They always claim the contestants have never met, but about halfway through the show, I start getting weird "alliance" vibes. Maybe they're just insta-alliances, formed of nothing but "you didn't vote for me," like the show turns into Survivor and people start keeping around who they can beat. But not always. It's confusing, and it always takes me out of the action when I can't figure out the vote. I continue to enjoy Jane Lynch's Sue Sylvester-lite act, though.
  7. I liked this episode, beyond the final cameo. I used the PPE as cues for the flashbacks. Full PPE (or well, KN95s) and face shields indicated present day, regular surgical masks (or no visible masks at all inside the hospital) indicated the past. Those must've been PAPRs (powered air purifying respirators) most of the cast were using (the clear headgear with a tube into a backpack-like device). Makes more sense for a fictional TV show than N95s. I wonder if they're purely props or broken PAPRs or what. Maybe there were some things that could've been more subtle or better done, but I liked seeing that Seattle Grace Mercy Death was doing the best it could to take care of patients during the pandemic. I needed to see that, for some reason, and I thought they did as well as could be expected for them.
  8. This. Also noticed this episode they both appear to have veneers. So, are they models or is Amazing Race a stop on their way to becoming regulars on MTV's The Challenge? I can't explain, but showing the map for Michelle and Victoria made them getting lost even more devastating. So close, yet so far.
  9. So, I've seen every Australian Survivor season except the "first" (S3, I guess it is, from 2016), then I found it and started watching and ... O.M.G. I adored it. So much. Checked all the boxes of a brilliant Survivor season for me: a heroes vs villains vibe, a big alliance imploding on each other, allies stabbing each other in the back and a true triumph of the underdog. I was so into this Mean Girls retelling with the Saanapu alliance. Flick was the most perfect Regina George, with Kristie as Lindsay Lohan's character (Kristie actually played this role twice, once with Phoebe, too). And the end was amazing. The cinematography (an endurance challenge on a cliff while they were pelted by waves?! EPIC!) And the type of pleading and bargaining you only ever see on Big Brother endurance challenges anymore. Kristie might've been sincere, but boy, did she know how to press Lee's buttons. That was her best move of the season. And her Keyser Soze-esque final tribal council argument about getting rid of them all. "Be yourself, back yourself." I was a fan. I loved so many of these characters in their pure, OG form, not their watered down versions on All Stars: Nick, Phoebe, Lee, Brooke and Flick. And Kristie was the best Survivor winner of 2016, all seasons, hands down, no contest. She played the type of game we never see anymore: the unaffiliated swing vote, and if she was the teensiest bit threatening, she would've been voted out much earlier. It was a great strategy, and it worked for her. I was burned out on Survivor after the underwhelming S40 and the excruciating S39. All Stars was great, but became semi-predictable. A well-cast, hard fought season with great characters was a balm to my soul. Maybe it was the season I needed at the time, but it is my favorite Australian Survivor season. No casting gimmicks, no "celebrities," just a good, old-fashioned triumph of the underdog story. The best Survivor season of 2016 in all forms. Be yourself, back yourself indeed. (I miss this show, maybe even more than the OG version, and hope it returns soon!)
  10. Thank goodness somebody else said it. I found it bizarre that in one breath, they said "we want to knock out the strong teams" and in the next breath, made an alliance with all of them. Pray somebody takes out the dude bros. Look how they corrected their error with minimal impact. Don't let their beards fool you, they will smoke every other team if given the chance, and I've seen this movie too many times. I need a different ending.
  11. As is the newschool way, Cody based his arguments around "comp wins" and "I made friends" versus any kind of gameplay. At least taking out Nicole was a big move. I guess he tried to take credit for Christmas' eviction because he ... won the Veto? But other than the comp wins, he was Tommy the fourth grade teacher from Survivor 39. If this is what newschool is now, you can have it. One thing I will say, as someone highly skeptical they could pull this off, is this season proved reality TV can work in a bubble. Which is good news and bad news, I guess. Good on them for doing it, bad on me for watching it. There was more action in one episode of 2016 Australian Survivor than in this whole season. The only thing I hope is it takes a little shine off Derrick, with Cody now a unanimous winner, because I'm so sick of hearing Derrick is the GOAT when he played once and won 6-3. That'd be like the greatest football player of all time playing in one Super Bowl where he won by 10 points. Stay safe out there, you guys.
  12. One upside in my mind: Derrick didn't win unanimously. Suck it, Derrick.
  13. Oh man, I was just coming here to say that. That was so delightful and spontaneous, from the moment Jimmy Kimmel said "I watched Fast Times last weekend," and Julie Bowen leaned forward in her chair, like they were having an actual conversation. I loved them going back and forth about the characters in the movie. You could see them drop their "personas" and it was almost like listening in on two friends, hanging out. "Forest Whitaker was in Fast Times?" "Yeah, he was the football player." And then when they started doing imitations of the characters ... I swear, twenty years fell away from both of them during that exchange. Julie Bowen was interesting, because I thought she was toast after she had to check with her expert after every single answer, but she clearly was leaning on the guy because she thinks he knew more than her. Yet when forced to think for herself, she's actually pretty good.
  14. Dani's speech about Cody about he had a great social game and won comps, gave me a flashback to the time when recruited "mactors" (model/actors) ruled Survivor casting. I believe very few of them actually won, but Big Brother has now become the nightmare Survivor scenario: a game designed for "mactors." Nobody has to make any moves anymore, just get in a big alliance, coast and pick off the "other side." No surprise noms, no backdooring, no using Veto ever, no blindsides or backstabbing. The only tension with the amorphous blob house alliance comes with who wins HoH. And this is a "good game?" Really? "I was so nice, I got you all to like me and also won comps." I would argue the last actual move ever made in Big Brother was Tyler and Angela cutting Brett during the double eviction in BB20. Two years ago. It's been two years since anyone made a move in Big Brother that wasn't the amorphous blob alliance leading someone around by the nose until they're led out the door. So wow very gameplay. Pathetic.
  15. Can I say this Veto completely makes my point about Survivor puzzles? Puzzles do not (or should not) require any physical ability, they are solely a mental challenge. It's an even playing field insofar as it assumes everyone has a working brain. But nobody was going to beat Cody in that challenge unless Cody tripped up mentally (and if he did, he could correct himself more easily) because Cody was faster than Enzo, Christmas or Nicole. Adding a physical element meant Cody automatically had an advantage. In a Survivor-type puzzle, that would've been eliminated. I mean, this season has sucked outright, but it also feels like there have been more physical comps this year. Where's the "guess the number" Veto? Or the "spell something" one? Is it space restrictions? Pandemic laziness? Or maybe this season wouldn't have been one big jock-fest if so many Vetos weren't "who was the fastest at doing this physical task?"
  16. So, Cody really wanted Enzo to help "take out" Christmas, which would have given Cody himself the chance to win HoH, and doesn't understand why Enzo chose a path where he guaranteed safety for himself rather than giving Cody a chance to win? Did Cody become Paul when I wasn't looking?
  17. It occurred to me when I watched the show tonight, given last night was the last real opportunity for game play at the Veto, that this scared rabbit/huge alliance game play deprived me of one of my absolute favorite parts of Big Brother: the backdoor nomination. A backdoor was always shocking and dramatic, and a big freaking move, and the one thing this show had over Survivor. It used to be how they took out comp beasts, back when dinosaurs ruled the earth. But it always added this kernel of excitement, the idea of the Veto being used "just because" and the target switching at "the last minute." If I never, ever hear "I wanna win Veto so I can keep noms the same," it will be too soon. It sucked all the joy out of what should be the most exciting part of Big Brother and turned it into the same stale, predictable garbage the nomination ceremony is. Get rid of Veto, or make it a freaking immunity necklace, if you're not going to use the backdoor, and save us the mind-numbing "I have decided ... not to use the power of Veto (again, some more)" ad nauseum, every. single. week. It's gotten so you can literally skip the last 20 minutes of the Veto episode, and that never used to be the case.
  18. Decent episode, but I cringed at the volleyball guys. They are literally every "dude bro athlete" team ever, but they hide their dude bro athleticism with beards. Completely unspoiled, but bracing for them to go far. Out-of-work football players I classify differently, because they're older and presumably retired (and thus out of shape), but can we get one season without a dude bro athletic team? Please?
  19. Dredging up their loved ones with cancer is not going to make me like these people any more, show. Should've saved that for final tribal council.
  20. I wasn't a fan of the original (Doctor Who episode excepted), but I kind of feel like Jane Lynch as a toned down version of Sue Sylvester is sort of perfect for this (the whole "black market root canal" was straight out of Glee). They finally found an appropriate American host. And my kids love this, because of the insults. Win/win.
  21. When Nicole told Cody, "I hold your Big Brother life in my hands" and then dropped the remote with a sickly sweet smile on her face, it occurred to me she could be a bargain basement Gone Girl, if she had the will and the drive and ... didn't appear to need men for validation.
  22. So, Iceland is apparently in lockdown, with all bars and restaurants closed as of October 7 in the capital? I thought they were supposed to be filming there (not sure of the city), and I would hope they dispensed with "send them out to bars" during a global pandemic, but it makes me wonder, especially if they started filming in late August.
  23. I'll say this and then I'll stop: people are not taking the pandemic seriously. People are engaging in behavior like this as we speak. The show is talking out of both sides of their mouths by normalizing it, and then being all "put on your mask and social distance." They can't have it both ways. There are plenty of people in this country who think this behavior is fine, and it makes the show look like a bunch of hypocrites to show this and then talk about public health and masks and "protect Julie Chen." It's like advertising: most ads aren't designed so you immediately go out and buy the product. They're designed so you remember the product, so the next time you're shopping, you might buy it. The show is normalizing unmasked fans at a sporting event, when right now, there are people who think unmasked fans at a sporting event is okay. Is Big Brother going to make people go to a sporting event unmasked? No, but seeing those photos, it starts to look more "normal." A "better world," right? And for people on the fence about public health interventions, seeing dangerous behavior modeled on a nationally televised show during a pandemic as "normal" ... maybe the next time they see it on TV, they're not as appalled. So, during a pandemic that's killed 210,000 people, the show can come up with a less risky idea for a Veto. Especially if we all have to stay 6 feet away from Julie Chen and wear our masks. (Okay, I'm done now, I promise. If the news has taught us anything this past week, it's that even outdoor gatherings of more than 10 people aren't safe. Stay safe, I want to keep talking to you all on this wonderful board!)
  24. Yeah, it kind of was. We all want to pretend it's all "back to normal," and there are sports teams as we speak that are allowing thousands of fans at games. I know I'm in the minority and I don't care if it's photoshopped, if you want to make a big deal about modeling public health interventions (like "please put on your masks and stand six feet away from me"), you find a different way to do this Veto, I'm sorry. Unmasked close gatherings of groups at sports games is happening now because people think it's fine, and this simply reinforces how normal it is. It was a bad look, and done in bad taste, that's my opinion. 210,000 people are dead, and some from doing exactly what was modeled in this Veto.
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