SnideAsides

There has to be footage of Kushner playing the bagpipes somewhere, right? That was just such a weird thing to include that it feels like it's building to something.

I wonder what game broke down for them to have to play Pick a Number (1) in primetime (2) for a car (3) when the back half of the show already had two quick games. Maybe Gridlock, but I feel like they'd just trot out Money Game like every other breakdown situation considering they're basically the same thing. I like the new podiums. It reminds me of the international versions of the show where they don't have a raised stage, yet it's still very much in fitting with this version's aesthetic. Less sold on picking people who are loud enough that they don't need Drew to hold the microphone in their face to be heard, but if the new setup means we lose the obnoxious "pick me" T-shirts, it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make. In the old days, we used to call Drew's beard Mimi.

In fairness, I wouldn't trust Johnny Bananas to save the world from the coronavirus. I barely trust him not to post his dick pics all over Twitter, and even that's only because of the old story about how the nickname is an ironic joke about how unsatisfying it is.

I'm thinking it's just they were planning on making these last two legs a two-hour episode like they've done in the past (and like what was announced when they originally said this was going to premiere in May). They may have decided there wasn't enough time for a Detour when they already had to fit the team intros, two Road Blocks, the overnight wait in Trinidad, the new Yield setup, the additional tasks, and two Pit Stops into ~80 minutes of episode.

Speaking of other versions of Taskmaster not getting the casting right, Taskmaster NZ just started yesterday. After one episode I feel like they got the Greg pretty right (he's a DILFy journalist) but they really really screwed up with the Alex, and not just because his brother is one of the contestants.

Olsen Twin.

Pretty much the only thing they got right by picking Reggie was the sense of gravitas the Taskmaster needs to have, and even then he has that performative "look at me acting pompous" gravitas instead of Greg's natural dominance. I've been trying to think who would have been the best choice for the US version (or at least the best plausible choice; the obvious answer is Bergeron but there was no way Comedy Central were ever going to be able to get him), and... maybe John Henson?

They would've had an exemption (like The Masked Singer or Mad as Hell or Neighbours) (how haven't we had "cook lunch for the Neighbours people" as a team challenge yet?) if they were already in production when the second lockdown started. Agreed on Albury. It's clearly improved since I took a coach from Sydney to Melbourne ~15 years ago and the best option at the place we stopped was one of those old weird spongy Footy Franks on a stale bun. In previous seasons of Junior Masterchef there were group eliminations but they also used a point system. Like there'd be three episodes of challenges for points (from memory it was six for a win, smaller scores for second or third in individual challenges, and one for just competing), then the top scorers were saved and the rest competed in an elimination challenge where groups of four were eliminated to avoid the "you finished last" stigma.

I only knew Johnny Vegas before this season, but my initial thought is that it's a pretty good cast. I don't think it's going to be one of the best, but all of them feel like they could shine if given the right kind of tasks (maybe Mawaan a little bit more, and Daisy quite a bit less in the "Phil Wang attention mugger" way, but generally promising so far). I do like the western motif this year. Visually interesting without being distracting like the manga art a couple of seasons back.

33 got shut down after filming three legs. Sorry for the confusion. (I kinda love how the four TAR franchises still running all reacted very differently to the pandemic: TAR US tried and failed to film a new season, TAR Israel re-edited a season it had already filmed to stretch legs out and add more episodes, TAR Canada simply took the year off, and TAR Australia has scrapped its planned route and is instead filming its next season domestically.) Also I'm completely fine with the show using Day-O for the Road Block. If only there was a Catherine O'Hara reference.

A combination of factors. TAR has been used as midseason filler ever since CBS realised the Friday Night Death Slot was a terrible idea, but there wasn't room for 31 so it ended up being held until Million Dollar Mile got axed last summer. Nothing on CBS really failed last fall season, and they originally announced it was going to take over Survivor's timeslot in May. But then shows started shutting down because of the pandemic (TAR33 was the first to suspend filming, in fact; they'd just set off when everyone started shutting their borders) and when it became clear they probably wouldn't be able to resume in time to fill the fall schedule, TAR32 was postponed in order for CBS to have at least one new season of a recognisable show to advertise.

0.7, 3.4 million viewers for the premiere. I'm sure at least part of that is the lousy lead-in from BB (it got just over half of what the Survivor episode immediately before TAR31's premiere got) and part of it is people just not wanting to watch a show about travel right now, but still, that's the lowest rating TAR has ever gotten.

When did BAG get so "lumberjack hot"? Like I know even in the later 90210 days he was always one of those borderline attractive, "in the right light, maybe" guys, but daaaaamn. Dude's looking fiiiine. Also I approve of him being incredulous of Jenny's stupidity. Admittedly that was a bit of an obscure clue she got thrown off by, but: yes.

So we had to sit through all the Doctor Will shit all week, and all it amounted to was a trivia challenge?! How dare they. HOW DARE THEY. Huge laugh out of the Triple Eviction graphic fail. Funniest thing on this show in several years.

I'm wondering whether all the obvious Disney/Frozen references for Sun are a decoy. Like obviously they wouldn't be there for no reason at all, but between the "dainty little thing" comment from Nicole and the stuff about "extreme seasons" in the clue package, I'm wondering if the real reason for the link is they were a Winter Olympian who did Disney on Ice? Like Michelle Kwan?

I've been trying not to post all of the Masked Singer Australia performances in here after every episode, but here's two that really should be highlighted here for posterity: (The judge reaction shots are a bit off in the latter, but it's understandable - production got shut down because a backup dancer got the coronavirus, and when they were eventually allowed to resume filming two of the judges had already returned to their home cities, so one sat in a replica studio in Sydney and another got Zoomed in via bad CGI from a New Zealand quarantine hotel.)

They've even got a template they can work from if they want: the UK's version of Big Brother (which mercifully got cancelled - for the second time - back in 2018) did this a couple of months ago as a shared celebration of its 20th anniversary and excuse to fill airtime during the UK's lockdown, getting two of its old hosts to pick ten iconic episodes (of the seasons Channel 4 had the rights to) to rebroadcast with little bumpers around the commercials to explain the context. It worked out really well considering the circumstances, but I wonder if CBS might have waited too long for that kind of setup to work here.

I feel like if you're going to subject is all to weeks of "I clearly know who this is but have been told to act dumb", it's way more fun to be so outlandish that nobody could possibly take you seriously. And Lindsay did somehow get a few right (including, of all people, a rugby player). This current season though, I'm disappointed there's so many actual singers in the cast. I know they were hamstrung with the casting because 2020, but... like, we're six episodes in and so far we've lost an athlete, an athlete who previously did another reality show that was basically Singing With the Stars, and four actual singers. And if they're who everyone thinks they are, the remaining six are five actual singers and a comedian who previously won that same singing reality show. I mean, I don't really want people who absolutely can't sing, but given how many people apparently wanted to be on the show, it's a bit weird that there's so little diversity in the cast's backgrounds. I know they're getting a decent variety of singer (the remaining ones appear to be a Eurovision contestant, a musical theatre lady, a cabaret singer/playwright, the lady who sang the current version of the Neighbours theme, and a Wiggle), but still.

In fairness, the last time he was here he got zonked pretty damn hard.

Production on The Masked Singer Australia has been suspended after a backup dancer caught the coronavirus. They only had the finale left to film, but it's unclear what will happen as TV productions in Melbourne were only allowed to continue through the city's current lockdown if they were already in production, and surely stopping production would force them to wait until the lockdown ends in the middle of September (when the episode should be airing) before resuming.

Same as they're doing in Australia then.

I've been working my way through the old Marble Leagues, and... given how they do a bunch of events themed on the host team (Black Hole Funnel was the only real one based on Team Galactic this year, but last year they did a whole bunch of water events for the Oceanics and the year before was a full Winter Olympics thing for the Snowballs), I'm kinda wondering what the Crazy Cats' Eyes have in store for next year. It doesn't seem like the sort of team that would be easy to build events around.

I feel like Black Hole Funnel is one of those sports that's a decent idea that just happens to be impossible to follow. Poor Greg Woods having to try to make sense of it. I was trying to rank the events from favourite to least favourite the other day, and then I realised... all of the other events were really great and exciting, but the actual racing events kind of didn't work for me. I don't know whether it was just because the sand and water was harder to film, or whether it's because we got like four races in a row in the middle of the season there, but give me something like Halfpipe or the High Jump any day. Also Kongrats to the Kobalts for winning the Marble League Showdown.

I think the problem is it's so obvious that "reveal the pecking order" is the goal of the challenge and using the "who needs therapy?" questions for it makes it too easy for the majority to work together. It'd work much better if it was an actual quiz about local culture or survival skills like it used to be, because then you've still got to earn a win rather than just being the majority alliance member everyone agrees is least sucky. But even if they won't do that, there's other challenges they used to do that had the same end result in more subtle ways. There's no reason we couldn't get the "flip over the spaces on the giant game board" challenge again, or a new variation on "use the projectile to smash everyone else's tiles" like they used to trot out every season in the early years of this show.

The point of "reality shows" is to make viewers think about society and how we treat others by reflecting reality. These producers being completely incompetent at it doesn't change that fact. (Escapism achieves the same goal in exactly the opposite way by challenging norms, and it's why science fiction is so strongly interwoven with feminism and the ongoing struggles for BIPOC, LGBTQI+, and disability rights.) Yes, it's weird to have overt acknowledgment of real-world events on this show (as it was when they had to tell the house about 9/11), but the reality of Covid Times is "news" is hitting all seven billion of us personally, rather than being a vague nebulous thing for politicians to handle while we mostly go about our daily lives. The news is coming into our homes. Big Brother is just reflecting that. And it's about time they did. Also, fuck whoever decided that Zoom call competition was a good idea. That was the single least funny thing I've ever seen on this show (perhaps on television ever), and... like, three seasons of Boogie.