dubstepford wife

There's a difference between making someone the villain and showing that they are culpable for a bad situation. Good people can make bad decisions and bring others down with them. I hardly think Laura is a villain, but she was responsible for using up a good chunk of the budget. That said I'm actually a bit surprised that Manny didn't get at least a bit of blame. Laura did get the villain edit in that Manny didn't get any flack for spending so much of the budget. Beef tenderloin is crazy expensive. As soon as I saw his pieces of meat I'm like, that has to be at least $200 right there. Beef will always be more expensive than chicken but there are cuts of beef that aren't that over the top. And he didn't even cook it properly anyway so he wasted the budget just as much as Laura did. Edit: the more I think about this, the more it isn't sitting right. Laura gets the villain edit because of her spending too much money, but Manny doesn't even though he was even more responsible for them being over budget. The rules just said beef course -- there are cuts of beef that are way, way cheaper than tenderloin. Yet he gets a pass, and this is pure conjecture, but I think it's because he's hot and the producers don't want to alienate the 18 - 40 women demographic that is a large chunk of the audience. That sucks for Laura.

I'm not impressed either. The dishes aren't very imaginative and they keep making very basic mistakes. Like, Charly seems cool and I love spicy caribbean food so if he had leaned into Haitian it would have been great, Tom even said that. But cooking fish 30 minutes before it is to be served? I received my culinary training from Betty Crocker and even I know not to do that. And as I was watching I actually exclaimed, "How do you screw up beef tenderloin?!" That's like butter meat. I'm sorry but if you can't cook that well then you are just not a very good cook. Edit: I had some stuff about Laura in here but I'm taking it out, because the more I think about it, the more I think Manny deserved the villain edit, not her. See my post below.

An entire season dedicated to her cutting her hair sounds about right. I remember there was an episode a season or two back where the main thing that happened was Nathan ate a lot of ice cream. The short hair makes sense though, Erin has short hair in real life and the showrunners were probably like, we're sick of maintaining those wigs, and it's the 20s in the timeline anyway (or at least I think it is, who knows with this show) so long hair had fallen out of fashion.

Harry: "You know, William II was probably murdered by his brother, Henry. Funny parallel, huh? But of course, I would never do that to you!" Will: (in his head) "If this were 1000 years ago, you totally would."

Having gotten WAY too into this show when it first came out, I figured it took place in Alberta because in 1914 there was a mining disaster that killed about half of a town's mining workforce, leaving many women widowed and many children fatherless. It was the Hillcrest Mine Disaster, and I thought that might have been what the writers based the original town of Coal Valley on. That said, the show actually takes place in an alternate universe, where the US and Canada are the same country, WWI is not a thing, people are always immaculately clean and have massive wardrobes and distractingly obvious veneers (looking at you, Kevin), and the technology is somehow both way too far advanced for the time period but also sometimes more appropriate for the 1860s.

Were this a better written show, this ambivalence on her part would be a red flag that maybe she's not ready to move on from Jack. It's completely understandable to think you've moved on, since you're not crying yourself to sleep every night, but when it comes time to actually imagine a new life with a new person, you can't do it. You don't want the new house, you don't want to move hours away, and you're triggered by someone in the same profession possibly losing his life. She's not ready, and she might never be ready. She might be a swan who mated for life. That's okay. Women's lives don't have to revolve around love, she can find something else to do with herself. And she has the Coulters, she has her girlfriends, she has her profession. Not being with a guy doesn't mean she'll be alone. But, this is not a well written show, so it's just rehashing the love triangle that went on forever because the writers are out of ideas. I thought the promo picture for this season -- the one of Elizabeth wistfully looking into the distance fading into a picture of the schoolhouse -- was lovely. Hallmark's graphic designers are better than their writers.

I just don't feel like Buddha won. I feel like Sara lost. But, they had to give it to him. He had four good dishes, compared with Sara, who had two great dishes, one fantastic, and one absolute disaster. She definitely would have won if her liver had been cooked properly, she was close to winning even with badly cooked liver. And it was with Amar; these two got eliminated for undercooking lamb in the wellington challenge. They just can't seem to get their timing right. I don't disagree with the decision, but having just seen The Menu, Buddha reminds me so much of the chef in that movie: calculated to the point of taking all the joy out of cooking. There's nothing spontaneous or eyebrow raising about it. It's elegant and refined of course, but he's following the Michelin script. And I think it says something that the judges will pick apart his clam chowder, but come very close to overlooking raw liver, because Sara's other dishes were just that good. For a second there I actually thought Gabri might take it. The judges seemed a bit milquetoast on Buddha, and Sara of course had the one disastrous dish. Meanwhile Gabri was the dark horse with his grasshoppers and dishes where the judges were like, "I have no idea what it is, but it's good!" Though for heaven's sake Gabri, learn to set a timer when you put beans on the stove.

If Gabri somehow ends up beating Buddha, I will never stop laughing. Talk about falling upwards. At this point the remaining chefs are so different that it feels like comparing apples and oranges. Buddha's food will be beautiful and avant garde and showcase a lot of technique, and a dinner made by him would be a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Sara's food will be the perfect bridge between fancy and comforting, it would never be boring but also never pretentious. And I feel like any restaurant owned by Gabri would be the most fun, it would be loud and lively and full of people drunk on tequila and enjoying the hell out of some elevated Mexican food. There's a time and a place for all three of those situations. Gail looked hot. That coral dress with the plunging neckline? Yowza.

She was breastfeeding and postpartum when this was filming. And even if she wasn't, her body is just fine. Let's ease up on this, eh? (And I thought her running was adorable) Something seemed a bit off to me about eliminating Tom and keeping Ali. We've seen many times on this show where the person who undershoots gets eliminated over the person who overshoots, but here it was the opposite. Also I didn't quite agree with Padma's assessment that the "caviar" shouldn't have tasted like caviar. The goal was to trick you into thinking you were eating real caviar but you weren't, and the salty umami-ness of the taste is a big part of that. I'm another who finds Buddha's food a little calculated. The best looking dish I've ever seen him make was the pasta Amatriciana inspired by his wife during last season. But then again, this is a criticism I have of fine dining in general. It just seems to reward artistry over everything else sometimes. The Michelin guide has been criticized for snobbery and also placing too much emphasis on Western cuisine over flavors from Africa, the Middle East, or Southeast Asia, and Buddha's food seems reflective of that. He wants a Michelin starred restaurant and he'll do what the Michelin guide is looking for in order to get it. That's fine, but it's also kind of soulless. I don't particularly like Gabri (as a chef, not as a person) and I think he's by far the weakest of the remaining contestants, but credit where credit is due: it took some cajones to give the judges a plate inspired by a mildewing nasty dish sponge.

Gabri is the Mr Magoo of Top Chef. At this rate, he's somehow going to stumble his way to the finale just by virtue of him always being second-to-last. How many times has that happened? Like, four weeks in a row?

Dale's story, oof. "I was an ignorant white guy who thought all Mexican food was Taco Bell, but then I tried real Mexican food and I became slightly less ignorant, so my dish is called, 'Look how not racist I am.' Enjoy!"

This ep legit made me a little angry. The quickfire was way, way too short for that volume of food. They don't tell viewers who got eliminated because they want to force LCK on everyone. And for a show that has been accused of sexism in the past, they seem like they went out of their way to ensure that Tom would continue. He takes a huge chunk of his team's budget and yet makes a bad dish, but is still given a chance to survive? Sylwia's lemon curd dessert chicken sounded nasty, don't get me wrong, but I think bad dish made with tons of money should get eliminated over bad dish made with not very much money. I am looking forward to the Watch What Crappens take on this episode though. There is so much material here that I know they're going to make fun of.

I don't know man, this seems like a lot of presentism. Helen's mother has been dead for a while so she wasn't around to teach her, and this was a time when there were way fewer cookbooks and certainly no instructive TV shows or Internet. You learned from your mum, or your aunts, or maybe the women who lived next door, and if you didn't have any of that, you struggled. It was also shown that Jenny has done the cooking for a while (and she likes it, she was excited about making cooked goose and pudding in at least one Christmas special) while Helen took on most of the physical labor around the farm, so she didn't have any practice in the kitchen. And in the 1930s, people who were respectable generally waited until marriage, male and female alike. It makes for a somewhat awkward wedding night followed by weeks or months of, "This is awesome! Let's do it again!" And as for Tristan, I have a master's degree and yet I adore YA fiction, so him enjoying a lighthearted book (which wouldn't have been seen as racist or imperialist at the time) doesn't preclude him being smart. He is also college educated; yeah it took a while, but it has been shown repeatedly that his bad grades weren't due to a lack of smarts, but rather laziness. When he applies himself he's quite intelligent.

This always bugged me about The Prince and Me (which somehow got a theatrical release despite basically being a Hallmark movie) -- why does the prince of Denmark have a British accent? To say nothing of the fact that if the crown prince were that attractive, single, and in his early 20s, he'd be in every magazine in existence. There'd be no traveling anonymously.

Danica McKellar commented on Bure's statement back in November. “The idea that Christianity would judge any form of love simply baffles me. I’m still new to my faith journey, but as far as I can tell, Jesus loves and includes everyone. That’s kind of His thing…”

I don't entirely disagree with you in that it should not have come as any surprise to people when CCB showed exactly who she was, but, these people are actors and we don't know what happens behind closed doors. GAF might pay more? Or they were told they would get more roles? I repeat what I said above, these people are not in demand actors and they have to take the jobs they can get. I could see them taking a "Don't ask, don't tell" attitude towards the showing of non-traditional stories on GAF in the interest of paying their bills. I don't really think Danica McKeller agrees with CCB and yet she defected. It seems less likely that people agreed with CCB so much as they were naive about the kind of place Bill Abbott would build. They probably wanted to think that he had grown. But now that he has actually stated a position (by backing CCB), they are facing some hard choices.

I don't envy actors who have to make that choice. Hallmark/GAF actors aren't exactly A list, jobs are hard to come by for them, and so to refuse to work with a network when you're already struggling takes a lot of conviction. Good for him.

I know Bond is what made him a superstar, but I know him from various BBC miniseries literature adaptations. No one can compare to his Edward Rochester (1983 miniseries of Jane Eyre, it's fantastic). He was also great in Penny Dreadful and as a super villain in Dr. Who. You can tell he had a blast with those roles. He seems like a character actor trapped in a leading man's body. Count me among those who are also kind of sick of "poor Margaret" though. She had a sad life, I don't deny that, but it's pretty played out at this point.

The sad thing is, for Hallmark, this is quality TV. I don't entirely blame them. I feel a bit left behind by movies and TV shows these days, since what people seem to want is super dark edgy stuff like House of the Dragon. That's not for everyone though. Network TV (in the US at least) is a revolving door of legal/medical/forensic dramas, and the cable channels are in a competition to see who can be the most controversial. In terms of cozy wholesome stuff, there's not much out there. So I can see why people desperately cling to Chesapeake even though deep down they know it's cliche and full of plot holes and features a lot of actors who are phoning it in. I'm not sorry to see Chesapeake go. It is pretty bad. But the only shows I have left are Virgin River and All Creatures Great and Small, and that's kind of a bummer.

Ah, ok, I missed that. Blink and you'll miss it inclusivity, sounds about right for Hallmark.

Do you mean Emilie Ullerup? She's in a relationship with a man, I believe. And Catherine Bell (from Good Witch) and Jonathan Bennett (frequently turns up in movies) are both LGBTQ. I feel like most of the hardcore Hallmark hausfraus have moved on to GAC Family, where being LGBTQ is going to be a "don't ask, don't tell" kind of thing, and almost certainly won't turn up in movies/shows. But on Hallmark itself there's at least a vague attempt (albeit halfhearted) at diversity and inclusivity.

I think he's going to be fairly heavily featured in the next season. Doesn't he play Amy's new love interest, or am I mixing him up with someone else?

Robert Cormier has died in an accident So unbelievably sad, he was just 33 years old.

I lost it there for a couple of weeks when I was watching House of the Dragon on Sundays, but I've decided that show is a little too much for me so I'm back. This was the worst. These people are well into their 30s (Evan might be in his 40s?). I get that it's Hallmark where everyone acts like a teenager when it comes to relationships but it just seems so juvenile and dumb. Bring back Connor and Margaret who actually act like adults with sexual tension, not high schoolers who freak out at the prospect of holding hands.

This has been an issue with CS since the beginning. I'm from the area where the O'Brians supposedly live and considering that they have a gigantic house on the water plus a plane means they would be multi-multi-millionaires. Like, Evan would have more money, but a match between Abby and Evan would hardly be a massive socioeconomic difference. And now add Connor's house/apartment that is also huge and that character is supposed to be probably in his mid-20s? It means he would have a trust fund. I don't think anyone in the show has ever mentioned money problems so at least it's not inconsistent the way that some Hallmark movies are, where people are "poor" but live in beautiful giant mansions, but yeah. The O'Brians are loaded.