[S05.E15: The Puzzle Master]

When Amy was fan girling over Melvin, I thought, "Oh, he's her Will Shortz!" Only to see that Will Shortz was actually in the episode. Yes, I am a big crossword puzzle nerd. 

[S07.E04: Episode 4]

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Yeah, show you lost me with this one. That was one bridge too many to cross. Way too much sugar-coating for a deeply messed-up situation. Sister Julienne and Doctor Turner did their best to sell this to Mumtaz (and the audience) as just another take on the modern (anachronistic) patchwork family. I might have bought this storyline had Mumtaz herself arranged the marriage after talking it through with her husband, had selected a cousin of age who consented to the arrangement - and then they had to convince the shocked Westerners that they were following their tradition and culture and that this model can work too.  Still sugar-coating but with less unsettling elements.

Sadly that was not the story presented:  I saw a 15 year old married off against her will, statutory rape (and no indication that the husband would not sleep with her again), a lying husband who talked about love but did not show the slightest concern for the feelings of his two wives, and a woman who was forced into accepting her husband sleeping with a child and then more or less being emotionally blackmailed to act as surrogate mother to both the second wife and the baby. Meanwhile the husband gets a pat on the shoulder and a cigar for having finally produced a son. Nope, nopity, nope.

 

So much of this. The whole thing was so icky to me. I'm sorry, but that is statutory rape, and all the "cultural norms" in the world don't make it right. If it's wrong for a Western girl, it's wrong for every girl. Ick ick ick, and as you said no indication the husband would not sleep with her again. So Mr. Gani gets to disregard the feelings of his wife, sleep with a child, and suddenly Mrs. Gani is the selfish one who gets emotionally blackmailed by Dr. Turner to just suck it up and move on because a baby. I hated this storyline so much. There is no amount of warm Vanessa Redgrave narration and soft-focus lighting that makes me feel good about the end of that storyline. 

[S01.E04: Victory Party]

I, too, have started to hate watch this, and it DOES make it more fun. Turns out, it's a comedy! 

Lou is the worst. I can't believe he would be allowed to get away with what he does with the rest of the staff, as in the scene where he was directing Robbie and Lilette. No trained musician would sit there while the stage director with no experience waved his arms around telling him to play more free or to feel the music or whatever Lou was doing. When your main character is a terrible parent, a terrible director, and a terrible person, it is hard to root for him. I'd rather see a show about Rosie Perez's character, someone who genuinely seems to be a decent human being and who genuinely cares about the well-being of the kids.

I also wish they'd make up their minds about how to pronounce Mr. Mazzu. Is it Mah-ZOO, MAH-zoo, or MATZ-oo? 

I'm wondering why Shannon Purser, who had a pop culture moment and is Emmy-nominated, and Sean Grandillo, who was in the actual Broadway revival of Spring Awakening, are stuck in such thankless roles. 

[S03.E12: Born This Way]

I literally laughed out loud when Halstead smugly told April that the difference between him and her was that he didn't judge his patient. Halstead is one of the most judgmental TV characters I've ever seen. He's CONSTANTLY substituting his judgment for his patients. If that's not judgmental, what is? He is judgmental to the point that it is impossible to root for him and his relationships. 

[S04.E04: Hang the DJ]

So, they kept saying that the app had a 99.8% success rate. Then at the end, when they "escaped," it said 1000 couples and 998 rebellions. Does that mean rebellion is the desired outcome? And those two whose celebration Amy and Frank ran into each other at were the two who "failed" when they accepted the outcome? I'm still not getting it 100%. Maybe 99.8%. :)

This show is just so relentlessly bleak that it's nice to have an occasional shot of light. I liked San Junipero all right. I also liked Hated in the Nation and USS Callister, where it was bleak but the bad guys got punished at least. 

[S05.E09: 99]

OK...this might be an unpopular opinion, but...I know the actress recently came out as bi, but I'm disappointed they chose to make Rosa bi. I'm all for positive depictions of LBTQ characters, and one of the things I've loved about this show is that it upends gender/sexuality stereotypes. Big, straight Terry is sensitive and emotional while the gay captain is stoic. I loved that Rosa was tough and unsentimental and rode motorcycles. I liked that a straight woman was allowed to be this way. Usually, on TV and in the world, young girls who like sports and don't like ponies or Barbies or straight adult women who aren't maternal or sentimental and do "guy" things are whispered about or openly labelled as lesbians. I thought it was great that Rosa *wasn't* gay or bi. I do love having a positive portrayal of the character and a sensitive, supportive portrayal of her coming out, but I always thought it was great that Rosa *wasn't* gay or bi. 

[S16.E15: Season 16 Reunion Special]

55 minutes ago, RedbirdNelly said:

I view myself as modest but I would not want to wear things that body covering and I resent any implication that having a skirt stop at the knee (but not wearing pants underneath) is not modest. It just implies a judgment to me which may not be intended. But that part annoys me.

YUP. It's kind of the problem I have with school dress codes, the idea that skin baring automatically = immodest and covering yourself from head to toe automatically = modest. It's the judgment and overgeneralization and making an assumption about someone's values based on the length of her skirt. But that's more a comment on fashion and society than the show, so enough from me.:)

[S16.E15: Season 16 Reunion Special]

1 hour ago, RedbirdNelly said:

I thought the you suck moment was just a joke

Perhaps...but it read as one of those "jokes" where people say something mean but true and try to pass it off with "j/k!!" Everyone seemed surprised at Kentaro's win or that he even made it to final, but for Ayana and Margarita, it read more that they were surprised given the judges' previous reactions to his work. With Kenya it read that she was surprised because she was that much better than anything Kentaro could do. It just felt very ungracious to me.

I just thought it was odd that they kept praising Ayana with the compliment that her garments were modest but sexy. Like that is the be-all of a garment. Granted, I'm a woman of a certain age who likes to be a little more covered, but why is the assumption that a woman wants to project modest AND sexy...particularly if her reasons for wanting to be modest are based in religion? Doesn't that kind of defeat the purpose of being modest if you're also projecting sexy? I don't know. I guess I just don't get the whole "modesty" thing. 

[S16.E15: Season 16 Reunion Special]

Y'know...I never thought I'd say this, but I actually felt sorry for the twins at one point. During the segment where they showed the "confessional" segments where they talked about each other's segments, it was clear (especially to anyone who has ever watched this show. Ever.) that EVERYONE does this. EVERYONE says pithy, bitchy stuff about each other's looks and EVERYONE shrugs at the camera and says, "I don't get so-and-so's look." It was pretty disingenuous of Kenya and Samantha to play victim and whine about what the twins said about their looks when every damn person in that room did the same thing. And how ironic that Kenya called them insecure, because the whole thing looked like a couple of insecure middle school girls finding the two girls in the room who were even less popular then they, finding a weak spot and digging in.

Unpopular opinion about Kenya, but the whole thing made me like her even less. I didn't find the "you all suck" moment at the show endearing or refreshing. Just unnecessarily bitter. I don't think her confidence in her talent was borne out in her designs. She struck me as a good seamstress and dressmaker -- but not a designer. 

[S16.E13: Finale, Part 1]

7 minutes ago, eurekagirl mOo said:

CLothes?

She's the one who keeps using the modest label. They're just clothes. 

[S16.E13: Finale, Part 1]

14 minutes ago, Nidratime said:

it makes me think we are judging other women who aren't covered from head to toe as being somehow loose. I know that's not what is meant, but it does make me grit my teeth.

Oh, it does me too.  The implication is that a woman who *doesn't* cover her arms or legs is somehow *immodest.* I feel like we should have moved past those labels. I don't know what else you could call Ayana's aesthetic, though.

[S16.E13: Finale, Part 1]

    I need a gif of Tim's WTF face after Kentaro's dead cat story. 

[S01.E06: Part Six]

I enjoyed this to some extent -- the look of it, the writing...exquisite. If we're talking about Margaret Atwood heroines on screen, I thought Sarah Gadon was every bit Elisabeth Moss' equal. What a revelation. I was especially surprised to hear she is not from Northern Ireland. Excellent job with a  tricky accent. And even better when she was being Mary during the hypnosis session. I thought in the first few episodes that the actress playing Mary had such distinctive diction. SG really captured that. She is really one to watch. 

On the narrative itself, I think I need some time to think about this one. I think the thing I'm struggling with most is the hypnosis session. I kept thinking that she and Jeremiah were in cahoots, and that when she went "under," she was going to claim she had no role in the murders and would, therefore, be pardoned. And then...she did the opposite. And I couldn't figure out why. Why damn yourself when you can set yourself free? And then I started thinking how unsatisfying that ending would truly have been -- that Grace would be rescued by a man. 

Instead, she made her own choice. To tell her story. To point the finger at her tormenters. She traded freedom for truth. Or at least that's how I interpreted it. 

As for her guilt, I initially thought that we see the "real" Grace in the ending shots when we see, from her POV, Nancy waving at her happily on the day she arrived at Kinnear's. This seemed to be a real memory. But then, that paints a better picture than the capricious Nancy we see in Grace's story to Dr. Jordan. So what motive would she have had to want Nancy dead?

Ultimately, I don't think it matters, and that's the point. Everyone had already made up their mind about her guilt or innocence without attempting to understand her. 

Oof...clearly i've thought too much about this. :)

[Season Four Episode Talk]

You know...there have been several Muslim women contestants on reality shows in the past year or so, and I wonder if FN wasn't capitalizing on that as a PR move. It's interesting, because Aveed said her family celebrated Christmas, and I don't know if an observant Muslim family would observe Christmas in even a secular sense. (I have a Jewish friend that eschews EVERYTHING Christmas -- even the secular stuff.) Also, Aveed showed a picture of her family, and I don't think she and her mother were veiled in that. I'm wondering if she only wears a hijab on certain occasions. She also never said she abstained from alcohol due to her religion -- she only mentioned her age. Which leads me to believe that she auditioned, wasn't a very strong candidate due to her lack of experience, but they picked her because she was a Muslim of Persian descent, and they encouraged her to wear a hijab as if to say, "Look! We're PC, too!" 

[S16.E11: Warrior Fashion]

I didn't care for the blue dress at all. It was...a dress. Everything about it...the silhouette, the color, even the shoulder embellishments felt very Dress Barn. It was well-made and fit Liris like a glove, but it was...a dress and nothing that couldn't be pulled off the rack right now. 

[S16.E10: Driving Miss Unconventional]

Zac Posen touching/feeling/tugging on the bra-lette to check for fit and construction = appropriate. Zac Posen grabbing the models boobs and going "honk honk! ah-ooga!" = inappropriate touching. JMO.

Brandon, too me, is like the restaurant you go to that does one thing but does it well. I like how is silhouette is androgynous yet weirdly feminine at the same time. I like the muted palette. He displays zero range, but I like what he does, and he has a strong aesthetic. I guess sometimes there is a fine line between having a strong aesthetic and being a one way monkey. I, personally, think he's the former. That said, it would be very nice to see how he could adapt his aesthetic to a *true* red carpet look (and not just the camp thing he did for Liris in E1) or bridal or professional wear. 

[S16.E10: Driving Miss Unconventional]

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'm sorry, right or wrong, the model's comfort is irrelevant,

Amen. Especially in an unconventional challenge. There's been times on PR or watching a runway show when I've genuinely wondered what the model thought of her tragic look. So on that score, the "model mirror" has been very interesting. Otherwise, I'm not feeling the focus on the models this season and how they are portraying themselves as the clients. I think it was Liris who said she didn't like the look "Kentaro had designed for her." No, it's a look Kentaro designed and you're going to wear it. You're not the client. It's your job to sell the hell out of it. There have been times when the judges have looked to the models and asked if the garment was too tight or hard to walk in, and they've reluctantly spoken up.  This year, they seem pretty quick to throw their designers under the bus. 

[S16.E08: Client On The Go]

Watching the twins cry with those ridiculous nose rings was off putting. I kept seeing something gold hanging from Shawn's nostrils and thought it was snot. 

I understand Margarita's feelings and how that could throw her off her design mojo for the entire time, even after Claire changed her design. However, Margarita could have solved all of her problems with a quick, kind, well-placed, "Hey, Claire. I think your shirt kind of looks like my dress from last week. You might want to change it so the judges don't slam you for it." Instead she had to go tattle and bitch to all her BFFs like it's the middle school dance and Claire showed up in the same dress. Even the kids on Project Runway Junior are more mature than that. 

I thought there were other more interesting prints and designs than Claire's, but she won because her pattern was Dixie-worthy. I loved Kentaro's vibrant colors, but his pattern was plain. And  while I thought Ayana's dress really flattered her client, there was no way Middle America was going to drink their coffee from a to-go cup with print in (gasp!!) Arabic and Dixie knew that. 

[S16.E05: Descending Into Good And Evil]

I just wish the designers would stop patting themselves on the back for designing for someone who's not a size 2. I'm particularly bothered by the use of "real woman" to describe these models. For one, it implies that smaller women aren't "real," and for another, by their own concept of the term, their plus models aren't "real," either. Liris might be bigger than their usual models, but she's a perfectly proportioned hourglass. She's not pear-shaped. She doesn't have short legs. She doesn't have a belly. She doesn't have cankles of any one of the other figure issues that so called "real" women have to deal with. I wish they'd stop congratulating themselves. 

[S14.E13: Top 6 Perform]

If the Nathan Lanier music hadn't already given it away, I would have know that was Christopher Scott for the opening. I really enjoy his group routines so much more than his duets. His duets tend to be variations on the "troubled couple" or "predatory woman/whimpering man." His group routines are just so much more interesting visually and thematically. Some of his group routines ("Architect of the Mind," "Velocity," "Sand") are my favorite pieces ever on this show.

This format just doesn't let me to care about this kids. I can't get invested in any of them because the season hasn't been long enough to allow it. And they've just been trembling in the shadows of the All-Stars the way this show has stroked and spotlighted them. I haven't always liked the format changes (was never big on the All-Stars), but I was OK with it as long as it meant we got another season. I don't really feel that this season. If it were cancelled, I can't say I would be sad. 

[S16.E03: A Leap of Innovation!]

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I wonder if the twins heard Heidi’s dance name as “Make It Twerk.” Because, like, they’re like totally millennial AF, and the millennials are all up in the #twerk you know right?

I'm considerably older than the twins, and that's how I heard it. 

Why is it necessary for Ayana's model to wear a headscarf? I'm sure there are many women of all religions  -- or not at all -- who would want to wear her modest clothing. I'm not sure why she puts all of her models in head coverings. Not to mention the fact that it blows all pretense of this being an anonymous runway.  

[S14.E11: Top 8 Perform]

I was so excited when this show returned to a format with actual dancers who had hit puberty, but this format is just not working and this episode just really drove it home. I *loved* the original style with the same couples dancing together for several weeks at least. Watching those bonds form, watching them learn and grow together was really fun and special. I didn't really love the addition of the all-stars, but it at least raised the newbies' game and made for some good duets as long as the all-stars stood quietly while the newbie was getting critiqued.

This format really is just the worst of all possible worlds. The partnerships are leaving me cold. Allison is a beautiful young woman, for example, but she's coming off like Logan's mom. The choreographers don't even seem to be making an effort to highlight the contestant over the all-star, and I don't really need to hear the judges critique the all-star in anything other than a, "Good job, thanks" kind of way. The all-stars should never have been allowed to pick the contestants. They really didn't do themselves any favors, and having them dance out of their own styles just highlights some of their deficiencies.

The contestants also seemed to be picked based on whether the all-star 1) had a previously relationship with the contestant outside the show (Lex, Kiki) or 2) based solely on whether the all-star wanted to dance with them. Number 2 seems reasonable based on this being, you know...a *dance show,* but it doesn't really make for very good TV. Everyone is so bland this year. There are no fun personalities. There are no "underdogs" you can root for and watch grow. No couples you can watch learn the ropes. 

I don't mind a judge with little/no dance experience. I thought there have been "civilian" judges who were audience surrogates and could comment intelligently on performance and entertainment value. Vanessa Hudgens is not that judge. 

[S16.E01: One Size Does Not Fit All]

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I think I might have liked Kenya's dress more if it were in a different color. Like, an actual color.  

I honestly thought it was just her muslin mock-up until she sent it down the runway.

The twins are exhausting. So I'm sure we're stuck with them for many weeks. 

Is it just me or does Brandon have some kind of speech impediment? When he said on the runway that he preferred to let the garments speak for themselves, I was wondering if he was self-conscious. 

Not loving the "Model Mirror" segment. And not loving how the judges asked the models how they felt about the garments. They're models, not clients. I thought we were done with the models after "Models of The Runway" was mercifully axed. Stop trying to make the models happen, show. 

[S14.E07: Academy Week #3]

I really don't like this format at all, and it was just highlighted by this episode. All that ridiculous agonizing and dramatic pausing. The moaning, "This is the toughest decision OF. MY. LIFE." Like we'e on the Bachelor suddenly. I've always enjoyed this show for discovering new talent and the watching couples grow and bond. And now it's about a bunch of people who already had their shot at this and aren't really interesting enough to headline this sort of thing. Robert and Jasmin? Beautiful dancers. Not interesting. 

I had an irrational dislike for Jenna on her year. I don't watch DWTS anymore, so I was unable to form a new opinion as a result of that. I was hoping I was wrong about her being annoying. I wasn't.

[Friends From College - General Discussion]

I binged the whole thing this weekend, and I thought it was disappointingly bad. I read some not terribly flattering reviews, and thought, "How bad can it possibly be?" And now I know.

They trotted out every unbelievable cliche and trope for this one, including...someone blurts out embarrassing secret in front of a roomful of strangers! people caught having sex in compromising situations! whacky experimental theatre! I can't believe these people were ever friends let alone still friends. And they are all utterly unlikeable. When Billy Eichner is the most likeable character, there is something wrong. I don't mind shows about unlikeable people. Veep comes to mind. But there has to be something else to hold interest. Goodness knows it isn't the writing. 

That said, the cast was wonderful. I adore Keegan-Michael Key. He should be a huge star. And the rest of the cast is strong playing some...interesting characters. (But Marianne? Why are they even friends with Marianne?) And I watched the whole thing and would probably watch a second season. It's so close to being good. With some tweaks, some more intelligent, insightful writing, it could be really, really good. But it isn't.