peggy06

I was flabbergasted at the renovation budget for the Framingham house - and they weren't even done at the time of filming. What they showed was nice, but I didn't really care for the kitchen. It seemed too monochrome and at the same time, like there were too many different finishes. It made me realize I'm kind of bored with the style of designs on most of these shows. And entertaining people around the kitchen island while sitting on backless stools? I don't think so.

I always seem to miss this, but I caught a couple of episodes last night. I don't care about what Nicole wears, or what she says, or that she's not really skilled at all the trades where she's in the shot. All of these shows are faked to one degree or another. I also don't care what order they show the rooms being done. I will watch any show that features beautiful old houses like this one does. And the mansion certainly fits that bill. After all the shows featuring McMansions or open concept first floors, this show is a breath of fresh air.

Offhand I'd say this was the most far-fetched episode I've seen, in terms of the methods they were using. Also thought it was a little too heavy-handed with the Dad plots. One or two, OK, but to have three characters dealing with dad desertion seemed like too much. I am growing to like Happy and Sylvester the most among the cast of characters, but the fighting over the drone controls was stupid. It's necessary for the plot that they not resolve the problem too soon, but they make the dumbest mistakes.

I watched this morning's reruns. The first episode I saw had a second-grader bridesmaid who was waaaaaay too opinionated and was given waaaaay too much airtime. I will give the child credit that I assume the show encouraged her and played this up, but it made for a very unenjoyable segment. The second show had a lovely red-haired bride with a controlling fiance who dismissed her opinions and seemed intent on having the final say on her dress. I get having an opinion, but this guy was more "My way or the highway." Plus, he criticized the first dress for showing too much cleavage, which I found embarrassing to his fiancee and basically a bad sign overall. I wanted to tell the bride to run as fast as she can. There was also a bride who wanted a David Watters gown in oatmeal with a feathered skirt. Her mother was not on board; neither was I, to be honest. The third dress she tried on was a champagne colored ballgown with a tulle skirt that was very flattering on her. I hope she ended up with that one. Last I saw, Mom was saying she wasn't sure it was the one.

I've been sort-of-watching the Vacation House for Free marathon. Now I normally switch off any HH or HHI in a resort location, but this show has the added renovation part, which makes it a bit more interesting. Plus, the houses I've seen so far are not cookie-cutter. I'm watching one in Marin County and two of the properties are major fixer-uppers. It's more fun than most of what I've been seeing on the channel, and I am drooling over the views from these places, so I will be looking out for this show on the regular schedule. It's the next best thing to taking a vacation, not a bad option as we head toward the gloomiest part of the year.

The Virginia wife did slightly rub me the wrong way, but I think it was just her way of expressing herself. She had redeeming qualities, such as, she saved her nurse salary to be able to afford that budget; she was interested in adopting older kids; and even though she was OTT in love with House #1, she was able to appreciate things about the other two properties. I would have chosen House #2. It was kind of a compromise between the other two. Even if I wasn't doing the actual work, I'd be intimidated by the thought of having to maintain 16 acres. And you never know when it's suddenly going to become your job to do it.

Regarding starter houses, when we bought our first house we bought what we could afford, and it was small. Later, when we could afford (and needed) more room, we bought a larger house. I don't really see anything wrong with that, although not having to move an extra time can certainly be a plus. But wouldn't want to have to heat or clean empty rooms. Now that I've downsized, I shudder at the thought of four bedrooms and three baths to keep up.

I caught most of that episode - he was looking for their "forever" house, and she was looking for a 2 to 5 year house (which is much more practical with your first house IMO). I didn't really like any of the houses, but feel like the one they bought was best. One of the decoys was waaaaay too big (6 bedrooms) and kind of an odd layout I thought. The other decoy was only 1600 square feet, and the rooms seemed cramped. The one they picked needed some redecoration (big red and blue ceramic tile counters in the bathrooms, to give one example of the decor). But it kind of won by default as far as I was concerned. They faked me out, though, because two houses were empty, and the couple really acted enthused about the big one. :)

Well there's puffed sleeves and puffed sleeves. I'm talking about the outsize puffs at the shoulder, often with the rest of the sleeve being quite fitted. I guess I missed that wedding dress trend, but I hope it never comes back. They've basically given away their dress. It's never going to look anything like "their dress" again. Sometimes it seems like Kelly uses just a small bit of fabric or trim, almost a sop to the idea of the remade gown being "Mom's dress."

If the first episode tonight wasn't a guilt trip, I don't know what it was. I'm talking about the bride who wore her mother's dress, remade into a Southern belle style with rows of fabric flowers down the skirt. Although similar in silhouette to the "new" gowns the bride tried on, it just wasn't as pretty or flattering. I thought the flowers looked cheesy, kind of like pompoms, and the skirt seemed limp despite being so full. The mother flat-out told her daughter she would be disappointed if "her" dress wasn't selected. What a crock! The remade dress was unrecognizable from the original. They might as well have bought all new fabric and trim. Then the mother is all, "I was so thrilled to see her walking down the aisle in MY DRESS." Ugh. I was hoping the bride would choose the first dress, with a cap-sleeve lace bodice and tulle skirt. She looked lovely, and the dress was something different from the usual strapless sweetheart neckline. WHERE do they get these original dresses, though? I've been to a ton of weddings, including quite a few in the 70s-80s. No one I know was wearing these ghastly sleeves with puffed shoulders. Almost all the vintage dresses are so OTT, yet I can remember many quite pretty dresses from that era that would still look good today.

Finally saw the finale. I don't care if they came up with this ending in S2. It should have been scrapped. It made a nonsense of the very premise of the show. It made Ted look like a huge jerk, purporting to tell his kids a story about their mother, when it wasn't that at all. It made the kids look incredibly callous. It was overly pat with the parallelism. The divorce bit was a huge slap in the face to anyone who watched the entire season centered around Barney and Robin's wedding. It committed the artistic crime of creating a character just to be a plot device, and then making her tragic on top of that. How much cheaper can you get? As a person who liked Ted/Robin, I feel insulted that the show considers this fan service. A character is tossed away to make way for them to get together? Ted's kids, instead of feeling offended and hurt on their mother's behalf, give their blessing? Just no. Everything about this was artistically wrong, from the pace and tone, to inconsistencies with the tone of previous episodes. The series should have ended with the Ted/Tracy meeting. No offense to the actors, but I forgot all about Ted's kids and did not need a bookend final scene featuring them. If things had ended at the umbrella scene, there would still be problems like the depressing portrayal of Robin, but at least the title premise would have been honored. A simple voice-over of Bob Saget saying "And that, kids, is how I met your mother" would have been enough of a wrapup. The last two seasons were disappointing, chiefly because I never cared about or believed in Robin with Barney, but I guess that's for another thread.

OK, this show is wildly improbable veering into silly, but I don't even care - it's entertaining! It's like the antidote to Resurrection, where the plot moves about an inch per episode. I find it to be a very relaxing Monday night watch. I like all the team members, am neutral about Paige, and they haven't forced Ralph into the plot too hard (yet). Not sure how they keep up the pace for a full season, but I'm along for the ride.

One of my minor peeves is how often the guest brides say they liked a person's dress because "It suits their personality." I don't get that, and it's repeated so often. I am actually surprised by how little criticism is directed at the dresses. In that respect, at least, the CBs don't seem to be judging by their own tastes. The more I think about this show, the less sense it makes. Maybe it's good that the season is ending. If we only knew, it's as fake as most reality shows, and the critiques aren't even genuine. That would explain why they sometimes don't seem to make sense. It's like you have to have something to criticize, or else you'd be giving everyone 9s and 10s. Then there'd be no show. I guess I'm part of the problem, because I watch this and the other wedding shows on TLC. But it does seem like the wedding as an entity to itself has become a monster. How anyone can afford even $10,000 for a single day event is beyond me, and that would be considered a low-budget affair.

Slow would be okay with me if it was intriguing, but I find this just slow, period. So many scenes that go nowhere and don't even set up anything to wonder about. Also, I agree that it;s jarring how they changed the tone radically from the S1 finale. At that point, it looked like big things were about to shake loose, we were getting the townspeople's reactions on a larger scale. Now it's back to these three or so families. What happened to the doctor who was doing research? What happened to the witch hunt? Outsiders know about this now; why isn't the media descending on the town? I could go with a slow pace if it yielded interesting interactions, but I feel the show is doing a poor job of exploring the ramifications of an incredible phenomenon. Large and small scale. Regarding Grandma and Arthur, I think Maggie is making a connection. Grandma's last words, "I hope I managed to bring the poor man some peace," were significant.

Maybe the sheets and towels and electrical gadgets they got as gifts at the wedding are worn out and in need of replacement. :)

It stands to reason, if you hire Michelle Fairley, she's going to have a big role. Her profile right now must be pretty high from Game of Thrones, and then she was in the 24 reboot as well. Whether this will be a good thing for the show or not is still up in the air. The show continues to move at a glacial pace and must rank among the slowest hours of TV. Everything is allusions and dark hints and portentous glances. I for one am ready to get some answers about the returned.

Well, I'm showing my age too then because I agree 100%. At some point, realize that ship has sailed and there are more important things in life than a fancy wedding.

Savannah episode last night. Not much that was noteworthy, except perhaps the surprise wedding. I thought that was a bad choice on her part. The surprise almost didn't come off, since she had to wave her hands and try to get attention of the crowd. It also always seems a bit of a burden to your guests to ask them to come in costume, but they did seem to be having fun, and at least it wasn't a tacky Halloween costume thing. I would have been happy with either the first or the last wedding winning. The first had a nice ceremony setting, and that bride seemed like a genuinely nice person. Cheerful and smiling at the other weddings, and most of her comments were positive. The last wedding (Liz) was strictly traditional, but I think she won based on the beautiful table settings and flowers at the reception. Her dress was odd. I liked the lines, and the full but not bouffant skirt. I didn't like the sash and a piece of fabric overlay on the bodice that made it seem too fussy, I actually missed the end of the Miami episode, so I hope someone can fill me in on who won. From what I saw, all of these weddings were fine. Nothing outstanding about any of them. I liked the bride who had the unfortunate gnat invasion at the ceremony because she seemed fun and nice at all the other weddings. She was really cute dancing with the little kid at wedding #1. Oh, and Desiree was gorgeous, but I think a couple of them low-balled her wedding because of too many orchids? Weird. The last wedding, I couldn't take my eyes off the dress because it seemed to fit oddly and overpowered the bride.

As a West Wing fan, I was hoping for a good political drama with a D.C. setting. This is no West Wing. The plot was ridiculously predictable from the halfway point if not before. I am already bored thinking about the conflict between Tea Leoni's and Zeldjko Ivanek's characters. Then they had to go and add a murder/conspiracy subplot as well. If I want to see CIA skulduggery, I'll watch The Americans. This show cannot possibly do it as well. TWW wasn't perfect, could be preachy and sentimental and idealized some of its characters, But they were great characters in the hands of wonderful actors. There was an energy to that show that is totally lacking here, so far. A plot where two young Americans were threatened with execution should feel a lot more urgent than this.

I have a new request. One-hour finale, skip the guest stars. They just don't fit this show unless the performer is a singer. Let each act do a performance, recap the season highlights, put these poor people out of their suspense. And us, too.

Surprised and happy that Mat Franco won! Up till tonight, I would have bet money on Emily West winning because the judges lavish her with such praise, and the live audience always seems to love her too. But as the show went on, I noticed that Mat got the biggest applause whenever they would introduce the acts. Things that make you go hmmm. I didn't realize how popular he is. But he does have a good act and a great stage presence. He does a nice job of keeping the audience engaged, of widening out the tricks for a larger stage. If it hadn't been Mat, I hoped for Acro Army. They are amazing, and their act is suited to the big stage. I just couldn't get behind Emily West. I don't find her that great. She sounds pretty much the same on every song - with one exception, tonight in her duet she seemed to be imitating Cyndi Lauper. It was weird. I was kind of put off when I heard she had been on a couple of reality shows already. When Sons of Serendip were performing, I couldn't help thinking that their singer sings everything sooooo slow. The contrast when the Train singer started in was dramatic to me. The way Nick offered that trip to Quintavious, I halfway thought it was improvised, because he couldn't stand to see Q. disappointed.

I like these ideas. My vote goes to: 1. Age limit of 18. I couldn't say it any better than marketdoctor in the first post. 2. Three judges, none of whom are Howie Mandel. No more ties! Maybe fewer mediocre acts would advance. 3. No solo singers. Go to one of the other shows that are exclusively for solo singers. Compete against your peers. Bands and ensembles are OK. 4. #3 is unlikely ever to happen, so as a second choice, make solo singers compete head-to-head in their own special bracket. Don't put an adult with a professional singing career under her belt up against a 7-year-old throwing cards. 5. No sob stories until the semifinals. Let the talent speak for itself. 6. No Snapple Saves. No judges picking the last act to go through. It's fake drama and is an insult to the people who bothered to vote. Voting results determine who goes and who stays. 7. Show the act, the whole act, and nothing but the act. Then show the judges. I really don't need to see Howie grinning or Heidi in transports to know how I feel about an act. If only....

Yeah, Emily West is going to win this. I wish she had auditioned for The Voice instead. I just don't get the superlatives for her, plus, I'm not into her "second chance" storyline. For a lot of acts, this is their first and only. Sons of Serendip need to pick up the tempo, or something. I'm over their earnest performances. Acro Army is great. I wish they, or Mat Franco, would win.

The pizza party bride was evidently more interested in putting time and money toward cute Broadway programs than anything else.

That's one of the great things about most of the characters, though. They are all complicated. Vee is the closest to being an out-and-out villain. But we've seen the postiive and negative sides of most of the rest. They may care about their friends, but they're willing to do awful things to the rest. It's more pronounced than on most shows.