blackwing

Pretty much describes her every single day. Ridiculous and horribly acted. I have absolutely no idea why voters think she is so great. She makes me want to change the channel as soon as she opens her mouth.

Nominations for Lead Actor and Lead Actress for this year’s Daytime Emmys were released a day early. For Actress, Katherine Kelly Lang and Annika Noelle were nominated. Notably absent is Jackie Wood. I’m happy for KKL but she will probably lose again, perhaps to her onscreen daughter who I think is a pretty bad actress. For Actor, Scott Clifton, Thorsten Kaye and John McCook. I wouldn’t mind seeing McCook win but I really don’t like the other two. I have no idea how Thorsten Kaye won last year… he is such a bad actor.

I am a little surprised that Mark Grossman didn’t get a nomination as Lead Actor. His work on the loss of his and Sally’s baby was great. What about Susan Walters and Courtney Hope? It’s possible some of them could still get recognised in Supporting No surprise that Michelle Stafford was nominated again. Have no idea what she did that was Emmy worthy. I thought this was finally going to be Melody Thomas Scott’s year to win. Not even nominated. Stafford will probably win, this will be her 10th nom and she’s only won once. Don’t know why the voters are so enamored of her. At least Jaqueline Macinnes Wood was omitted this year. Maybe Katherine Kelly Lang can finally win instead.

Thanks for posting this! I am looking forward to it. I hope they don't screw it up. I remember so looking forward to "Three Pines" and the adaptation of the book series was fairly abysmal. I just finished reading C.J. Sansom's Tombland. I enjoyed it overall, even if I thought it was a bit too long. While I appreciate historical detail, I do feel like some of the details about Kett's Rebellion could have been shortened. I know that Sansom has had some health issues. But on the internet there is a description of an upcoming book 8, Ratcliff, and a small summary. I can't find any further information or whether this book is still in progress or if his health issues have precluded it. I also just finished Peril at the Exposition by Nev March. This is book 2 in a series that started with "Murder in Old Bombay". This time, the couple Jim and Diana have gotten married and moved to America. They were in Boston when Jim (who is working as a spy/operative/detective or something) gets sent to Chicago to investigate the disappearance of another agent and the death of a Pinkerton detective. The 1893 World's Columbian Exposition is occuring there. Jim disappears and Diana goes to find him. I absolutely hated the first book in this series. HATED. It was too much romance and too little mystery. This book wasn't quite so hateable, but I found it particularly boring. For a book with its setting as the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, I was amazed at how little of the fair was incorporated. Characters visit briefly and there are throwaway descriptions, but that's about it. I really thought this book was going to be a mystery set during the World's Fair and that we would get lots of descriptions of the various booths and exhibits. Instead, the book seemed to mainly be about an anarchist plot involving bombs that just happened to have the fair in the background. Really disappointing. The book was also way too long and could have used an editor. The third book in this series is set on a cruise ship. I really want to read it and like it but given the track record of this author, I am prepared to be disappointed. It's James Patterson, I doubt he had anything to do with this book besides put his name on it and take a large percentage of the actual author's profits. I'm kind of over James Patterson and his claim that he is the "World's Most Popular Storyteller" when he doesn't write 95% of the books that he takes credit for. The co-author writes the entire book and yet he gets top billing. Why pretend? Why can't he have his own pubishing house where the authors publish the books as the sole author but they are from "the James Patterson Publishing House". Like a stamp of approval by him, like Oprah's Book Club or Reese's club or whatever. It just kind of disgusts me how he takes credit for all these books that he doesn't write.

Goldfish is a strong contender to win it all. I like her better than Clock and she is way better than Poodle Moth. I like Vanessa Hudgens so I hope it's her and I hope she wins. I'm only sorry that Nicole is away from the show this season. Nicole has guessed her in the past and I think Nicole would have loved to have seen a fellow Filipina-American be on the show and possibly win. What a joke that Kate Flannery made it so far. It's ridiculous that she beat out the amazing Charlie Wilson. I don't get the hype about her... Nick was using words like "legendary" and "most beloved" to describe her. Really? I don't know her from anything besides "The Office" and I absolutely despised Meredith.

Community service? What a joke. If I'm Diane, I would have filed a civil lawsuit against Phyllis. There's a whole slew of tort actions there. Defamation/slander, intentional infliction of emotional distress, maybe false imprisonment, etc. How is it that Jack and Diane didn't pursue this further? I have no doubt she is going for the Emmy, and she will probably get it, which is a joke. If anyone on this show gets a Supporting Actress Emmy out of this set of storylines, it should be Beth Maitland. But her role on this show is a calm and supportive voice of reason. It's not flashy or showy, and it's a shame that Emmy always rewards flashy and showy over subtle and nuanced.

Ridiculous, Summer didn't even adopt Harrison. I get that she formed an attachment as his stepmother but for her parents to act like Harrison is her child is ridiculous. I was away from show for some time. I know Phyllis faked her death and killed that creep husband of hers. Then when she resurfaced, I think Daniel was pissed. Summer seemed ok and I think she hid the secret for some time. Phyllis tried to frame Diane for murder, wouldn't there have been some kind of conspiracy or obstruction of justice charges filed against her? Why does everyone in town seem more or less ok with her? Diane obviously doesn't like her but if I were Diane I would be absolutely livid seeing this woman walking around free every day.

I don't think Jordan can win because that means that Gordon's person wins two years in a row. There's no way the other judges would allow that. This show is so rigged, there's no way that Richard doesn't win this season. And his only person left is Zack.

So the Newman and the Abbott families both have enough money to buy the entire town many times over, and their security teams still can't prevent Jordan from waltzing in and plot devicing her way into an easy kidnapping. Stupid. I thought Hunter King was awful, and the only reason why she got her Emmy is because of the drama about her breastesses. I think Alison Lanier is awful too. I'm sure she thought her screeching is going to put her into "I smell Emmy!" territory but it's just pathetic. She's not even the mom, she's not even the stepmom anymore. I agree that Susan Walters and Beth Maitland were great. Beth Maitland doesn't get enough recognition. She was ridiculed for years for her weight by characters and viewers on and off screen, and gets shelved altogether off and on for years. I know she won an Emmy about 40 years ago and got nominated several years ago, but she needs more recognition. I hate the Ashley storyline but Beth Maitland is fantastic in it, I really like the relationship between Ashley and Traci. I don't understand how Claire has taken over the show either. It's almost like Bradley Bell is writing this show, he does this all the time on B&B, he chooses a few favourites and they eat the whole show, and everyone else just falls by the wayside. Danny Romalotti is a joke, the description of him as a prune is spot on. The dyed and coiffed hair is ridiculous on a man of his age. I've thought for years that both the character and actor are very effeminate, I don't understand why Christine and Phyllis have fought over this lump for years and years.

It was super obvious to me that the colonel was the bad guy as soon as he appeared onscreen. However, I thought he was the one killing the marines. I didn't figure that Osborne was actually killing them, but only because colonel told them to kill Osborne first. I am confused about the ending, so we are supposed to be left wondering if the woman in the cabin is actually Jane's mom and is alive, or if Jane hallucinated it all? If she is really alive then this strikes me as shades of Doris McGarrett. It'll be too much if she's alive and is a secret agent and is off chasing Maggie. Maggie seems to kind of be this series Wo Fat, turns up just when you don't want to see her. I don't want to see her ever again but I know she will be around until the series eventually ends. I agree that it would be nice if they had a throwaway line about Lucy. Lucy seems to be the only character who regularly disappears altogether from the episodes. I know that when she was on Agent Afloat, the actress was actually on the mainland doing other work. But it seems odd that she is just randomly gone sometimes, unless the episodes are aired out of order and she actually does have other work somewhere and she was gone for half the season.

I liked this episode. Murdoch arresting Santa was funny. Higgins doing good deeds because he was naughty was funny. Getting called out by Brackenreid on why he was doing the good deeds was even funnier. I looked up a rough value of $3, and it'd be $50 today. Seems like a big secret santa gift. And everyone was right, there's no way the watch that Thomas got Watts was $3. I also don't think Watts would have accepted it, he would have said it was too much and would have asked Brackenreid to return it and donate the money to the orphanage. We had the out-of-order episode last week, but with this one, George is back. And nobody even said anything about where he has been and what happened in Alberta. I wonder if this episode was aired out of order because it coincided with Christmas time in Canada. It was really odd to me that nobody asked George what happened with his father. Maybe next week?

The explanation given onscreen was "she signed the birth certificate" and "in New York, whoever signs the birth certificate has the rights". Makes ZERO sense to me. There have to be thousands of babies born each year by surrogates (in New York or otherwise). Wouldn't something like this be easily determined? She was a surrogate and she fraudulently signed the birth certificate and claimed it was her baby. The hospital would be liable too. Don't understand why it would take months to go through the court system, a judge should be able to make that determination and ruling pretty quickly. Three seasons of Maroun, that's enough. Three seasons of this revival and we've already had four detectives for two slots. We've gotten a new DA. So I think it's time for a new ADA too!

I'm glad we lost Tim. I couldn't find much to like about him. The women comment, the grating voice, the thinking he was running the game. He's in the secret "plus one" alliance of six and the first thing he wants to do is get rid of one of them. I'm glad they decided to get rid of him instead. Ben has semi-longish hair pulled back like an aging rocker. He has large blue or grey eyes. Charlie looks more like a prep school kid. Taller and skinny with squintier brown eyes. No contestant said "episode several", they wouldn't think of their days on the island as "episodes", they would just count the number of days. I don't understand the obsession by Jeffy or the show producers over Jelinsky. He was one of the more terrible contestants in recent years, a completely laughingstock. Hopefully he becomes forgettable and they don't try and bring him back. Venus is indeed a Mean Girl. In deciding between Soda and Venus, they decided to get rid of Soda because basically "Venus is a beeyotch but we know she is a beeyotch so we can work with that". They seem to be well aware that Venus is manipulative and seem to think that they won't fall for her manipulations? The only person that doesn't seem to be aware that Venus is manipulative is Venus herself. Venus seems to think she is playing a great game. She is delusional. Like Angelina Keeley levels of delusion. Part of me wants to see her get dragged to the end as the zero-vote person and get humiliated by the jury's questions and the vote results. The other part of me wants to see her get voted out ASAP, for her to say in her exit that she's a strong threat which is why they voted her out, and then watch the episode on TV and see that everyone hated her. I absolutely loved that Maria called her out about her aggressive demeanor on the beach. I said before that Venus reminds me of Yasmine from HBO Max's "Industry". Spoiled pretty young woman who is used to getting what she wants, used to people falling all over her to do her bidding, and gets upset when someone dares to challenge her. Good for Maria for putting her in her place. Venus is also a grudge holder. I'm sure next week we will be hearing about how she thinks Maria has to go, because Maria is dangerous. When in actuality the real reason is "Maria was mean to me". I know that Tevin decreed that "Soda gotta go-da" but I think he made a poor decision. You want to get rid of the manipulative snake (Venus) ASAP. He was getting along with Soda and he would have benefitted from keeping his alliance with her going. Re Liz, unless she starts doing something soon, I can't see her winning. So far, from a viewer perspective, the only notable thing she has said or done is 1) she's allergic to almost everything, 2) she looks like Moriah, and 3) she is a millionaire several times over and has run and/or sold four or five different companies. She's not even seen doing any behind the scenes stuff. She's just there. Hunter is one of the only ones that I like a lot. I like his competence at the challenges. I like that he knows he is perceived as a threat and that he needs to try and do something about it. Getting the idol was a good move for him. I like that he didn't burn it and trusted in his alliance. He seems well liked by his tribe, even though they know he is a threat. He has also shown that he is a provider, we saw him successfully fishing earlier. Above all, he seems like a truly nice person. Almost too nice to play the game. I bet he's a great teacher, the ones that kids will remember for years after they have left school.

I was kind of surprised that Izayah didn't go home, because he is Zack's strongest competition. Gabi is strong too but I just don't think they will have a woman win three years in a row. This is the year for Richard Blais to win, and Zack is his only person left. I agree that Jordan should have been in the bottom. A yakitori Imitation Crab stick? Gordon said it was disgusting. The task was to create a cooked dish, a sushi roll, and a tempura. His cooked dish was disgusting, and on top of that, all he did was put it on the grill. Why did Gabi go to the bottom, just because her sushi roll was too big? I don't think Jordan wins, it's been clear to me from almost the beginning that Zack was going to win. They love his story of him living in Maui. I agree that it was time for Nicole to go. She is super nice but she had a lot of issues this time. I did like how appreciative she was of her time on the show, saying she was so grateful. She also knew she was never going to win, so I think she just truly enjoyed the experience for as long as she got to be on it. Agree with you that I can't stand Christina. I hate her voice and her tremulous self-deprecation. Either Mada or Christina has to make the finals. I hope it's Mada, because he has a better story and Christina and he's a lot more likeable to me. At this point I would like the final to be Izayah, Mada and Zack, but I don't think that will happen. I'm indifferent on Zack winning. I find his hair and his constant reference to Maui annoying. He's from Illinois! But I don't dislike him, the only people I dislike left are Jordan and Christina. I think Zack is the only one left that is a professional chef. It was mentioned that everyone who is left on Gordon's team are social media chefs. And I'm pretty sure that both Mada and Christina are home cooks. I think Christina is the one that is a nurse.

July 18! I can't wait! I'm currently watching "Domina", not liking it as much as "Rome" or "Spartacus".

This episode irritated me to no end. Really ticked off that the writers tried to excuse the defendant's murderous actions with a handwave of "she's from Ukraine, she's had a rough time". When Price suggests that millions of people have come from Ukraine and no one else has murdered, defence lawyer objects and judge agrees. Terrible. How is it that the woman thought she could just leave in the first place? She had a contract to be surrogate, she decides no, I'm moving out today? I think I missed the explanation for why she was moving out. Just didn't want to do it anymore? Wanted to keep the baby for herself? If these were said, I missed it. I much rather would have gotten better explanation of some events instead of wasting time on the homeless guy who stole $20 from the wife. Really ticked off at Maroun. I wish Baxter had been observing and fired her on the spot. I knew right away that she was siding with the defendant. Why is she even a prosecutor? She frequently seems to have a bleeding heart for the defendants. Wouldn't she be happier in life if she were a defence attorney? I know that her role on this show is to be contrarian to Price, but still. How come she kept her job while Greg or whatever the name of that poor schlub with his things in a box from the other week was got fired? The defence attorney... ugh. I think this actress thinks she knocked it out of the park but everything about her bugged me. The bug eyes, the superior inflection of her voice, the severely short/pinned "I'm a professional" hair. I hope we don't see her again. In this era of L&O it seems like anytime the defence asks for something, they get it. This judge was truly ridiculous. The hammer was found at the CRIME SCENE. Shouldn't that just be part of collecting evidence? For the judge to say she was living there and therefore has an expectation of privacy, doesn't that suggest that any evidence collected at any crime scene would be inadmissible, as long as the defendant lived there and didn't consent? So a husband who kills his wife inside their home, he can flee the home and then later claim that evidence was improperly collected? Makes zero sense. And he was so dismissive with his repeated "anything else?" demands to move on, like he was impatient to get home so he could clean his belly button lint. Changing tactics mid-trial, also terrible. Judge said they would get time to prepare, I wonder how much time that was. Why didn't the prosecution have their own psych expert who was able to talk to Davina and come up with their own conclusions? Did they though? I thought Baxter said he'd like to bring a case against the baby broker. But I would have liked to have gotten more definite confirmation. Why was the baby broker in any position to bargain? He said he would only testify if he got full immunity. Why not say "no, and here's your subpoena". I was surprised they didn't put this guy on the stand. We needed to hear from him about the other couple and the $250,000. But I guess that would have been an open and shut case against Davina so it would have made things too easy. Why did it take until so far into the trial to mention the $250,000? I'm hoping Price said something in his opening statement that was cut for time purposes. If I were prosecution I would have subpeonaed the 250K couple to testify that Davina was completely calm and collected and rational when trying to sell the baby. Not someone who was suffering from PTSD and shocked at what she did and not thinking straight.

I knew it was Colton Underwood from the clues the last time. Good for both him and DeMarcus Ware, people that we didn't know could sing but turned out to be pretty decent singers. I think both of them were better than Starfish. Not sure why Jenny was saying that Starfish has such a good voice.

Also, sorry for Jordan and his dead brother, but it was a bit much. He asked his brother for help and his brother's hands were cooking for him?!? What's going to happen when Jordan gets eliminated, hopefully next week? The brother abandoned him and was doing something else at that moment?

I’m so disappointed that Von is gone. He was my favourite. I don’t think Jordan is winning. It’s been telegraphed from early on that a man is winning this season, and that’s going to be Zack. The show bends over backwards for Zack. He deserved to be picked for elimination last week where he would have burned his immunity pin, but instead, Richard sacrificed Angela. Now Zack goes into the individual rounds still having his pin. With Von gone, it changes up the finals composition. I’m still going with the rules of one from each mentor, can’t be all same sex, and at least one minority. I’m not sure if Gabi is Hispanic or if Egyptian is considered minority. Nicole and Jordan are automatic toasts because Zack is making the finals and Jordan being in there as well means that Nyesha’s rep can’t be either Mada (three dudes) or Christina (three white people). So the finals are either Zack / Izayah / Christina or Zack / Gabi / Mada. I think Christina and Mada are both weak and I like Izayah better so I’d prefer the ZIC combo. In any event, it doesn’t matter, because now with Von gone, Zack has this thing sewn up. Only Izayah or Gabi can challenge at this point.

Catching up... I liked "Clan of the Cave Mom" and Marge is my second least favorite character. I liked that she was defending her son, even if her son was kind of a jerk and Luanne wasn't wrong about it. The animation of the caveman sequences juxtaposed with the scenes of the corresponding action in Springfield were just beautiful.

I think this episode aired just the week before in Canada, it must have been popular so Ovation wanted to air right away? I found it a bit jarring to see George. Nice to know that he is alive but he is still in Alberta or wherever he is as of Episode 8 and since this episode 22 was aired out of order, it was odd seeing him without knowing what he has been up to or how his situation resolved itself. I saw Colin Mochrie's name in the credits and just sighed. I wish I hadn't been spoiled but I don't need to see that character again. I watched those "behind the scenes" snippets they showed during the commercials. It appears they all did their own singing. Jonny Harris knows he isn't a good singer, and he was right. Yannick Bisson isn't very good either. Helene Joy was by far the best singer. Daniel Maslany commented that his singing voice is a lot higher than his normal voice and that he grew up doing musical theater. Lachlan Murdoch was decent. Arwen Humphries seemed to suggest that they used autotune on her voice. Not sure if that was a joke or not, if they have autotune why didn't they make George and William sound better? I asked on the main Murdoch thread to see if any Canadian viewers could answer, but maybe someone here knows. My recording stopped after Murdoch responded to Fellowes' claims that he had to do this because Murdoch knew he was alive with "you overestimate our resources". What happened after that? I think the episode was pretty much over but would like to know what was said if anyone knows.

Ovation in the States just aired episode 22 this past Saturday. They usually don’t air episodes out of order so I think it must have done so because of a good reception in Canada to this episode the week before. Question, the episode seemed to run a little over and my DVR cut off a little early. When Murdoch is with Fellowes in the interrogation room, Fellowes says “don’t you want to know how I did it”. Murdoch says “I know how, I want to know why.” Fellowes says “you were going to find out I was alive.” Murdoch says “I think you overestimate our resources”. Then my recording stopped. What was said after that? And is Fellowes going to prison for a while, until he invariably escapes?

They post pictures because otherwise the public would always say "how come you never post any pictures of your kids" and accuse them of making up imaginary kids. Jamie Dornan is one of those celebrities that only posts pictures of the back of his kids' heads. He was on some talk show and the host put up a photo from either his or his wife's instagram. Jamie joked that "that's all you ever see, they don't actually have faces". In today's age, I think it's very understandable why some wealthy celebrities wouldn't want photos of their children made public. Children of celebrities have been kidnapped for ransom in the past, and that was in the days before the internet.

Not surprised at all, it tried too hard to be "The White Lotus" and it had too many twists for the sake of having twists. The supposedly dead mom having had plastic surgery to become some kind of Danish Interpol superstar but who was actually some kind of global megalomaniac was completely unbelievable. The lead actress and her utterly terrible hair was not strong enough to carry the series.

I liked them too. And I did think it was funny that Jesse, who is “classically handsome” and surely knows it, was telling Ernie that he didn’t need to be classically handsome. The wry look that Ernie gave Jesse was hilarious. Didn’t Ernie have that girlfriend who was really into him but he wasn’t so into her? What happened to her? Isn’t she proof that he’s not the complete loser he thinks he is? Did anyone else do a double take and think the blonde fiancée was the same blonde Russian lady from last week? Just me? Or must have been the same blonde helmet hair.