proserpina65

I knew there must be a reason that short program left me feeling 'meh' - now I know why; I also loathe Derek Hough and think he's a lousy choreographer. But yeah, I ran the ice-dancing category.

I don't necessarily need a character with whom to sympathize, but sometimes the characters in a particular show just sound too unsympathetic to me. And I will admit that drug dealers are a specific hang-up for me. Although I've watched the first 2 seasons of The Wire and really enjoyed them, so I'll confess to being inconsistent. :-) I'm with you on Mad Men and Modern Family. Sofia Vergara's voice in the ads for Modern Family drives me crazy, and I actually liked her on Knights of Prosperity; of course, on KoP she played an intelligent character, which definitely helped.

But that was not my initial impression of either show and therefore I chose to dislike them based on that impression. Hence they are shows I've never watched but hate anyway, however unfair that initial assessment might've been. Nothing I've read about either show, regardless of whether or not it contradicted my first impression, has made me want to try watching them. Same goes for Suits and Royal Pains, although clearly my understanding of RP's premise was somewhat off. I absolutely refuse to ever watch The Walking Dead, no matter how good it might actually be, because zombies scare the crap out of me. I made an exception to my "No zombies ever!" rule for Game of Thrones, but that's it.

Okay, well that gives me a little more sympathy for her initial situation. Then she decided to become a drug dealer. I have no sympathy for drug dealers.

Suits - no way would a legitimate law firm hire someone AS A LAWYER who had not only not passed the bar exam but had never attended/finished law school. I couldn't get past the ridiculous premise. Same goes for Royal Pains - my initial impression was that it involved a doctor who decided to waste his life catering to spoiled, pampered rich assholes, which turned me off completely. Never mind that the premise is somewhat different; it was already too late. And don't get me started on the "I'm sick/divorced and poor so I'll become a drug manufacturer/dealer" genre. Breaking Bad and especially Weeds just pissed me off with their premises. (Seriously, you're getting divorced and can't afford your lifestyle. Tough. Downsize and get a job, spoiled bitch.)

I'm a pretty good cook, but admit to being intimidated by the very idea of making broth from scratch. So I don't blame Denker for not being able to make it. Broth is not actually easy to make if you're an inexperienced cook. {Edited to note that, while I enjoyed seeing Spratt brought down a few pegs, as I've disliked him ever since he screwed up what was basically Moseley's job interview with Lady Whatsername, I could do without the whole Spratt/Denker conflict storyline.}

Many ulcers are caused by bacteria, not stress or diet. Although, of course, doctors in the twenties wouldn't have known that.

It was rather smashing. They used Alnwick Castle in Northumberland as a stand in for Brancaster Castle, for both exteriors and some interior shots as well. Having seen many, many photos of it (though never having visited there personally, unfortunately), I recognized it almost immediately. Here's some info from the Alnwick Castle website: "The cast and crew spent two busy weeks at the castle in July and August 2014, filming extensively in the spectacular State Rooms, as well as in the castle's grounds and at the semi-ruined Hulne Abbey in the Duke of Northumberland's parklands in Alnwick."

Upon rewatching last week's episode, I've decided that the scene with Sarah and Jimmy Clarke wasn't as creepy as I'd initially thought. He is still a cad, though. Poor, poor Barbie! She can't even take comfort in one of the few friends she has because people are assholes. Personally I do think there was a subconcious vibe between her and Mabel, but nothing towards Sarah or Susan, and for the vicar's wife to tell Barbie about it was just wrong. Ugh. And Susan be cray cray.

I enjoyed that episode greatly. No real complaints about it all. Plus, I adored both the gown Edith wore at the castle and the one she wore on Christmas Eve. She looked stunning.

My unpopular opinions: I like the Bateses, and didn't mind the rape storyline, although I think the Green murder storyline has dragged on forever and needs to end now. I like Robert, and think he's basically a decent, if a bit pompous, person struggling to adjust to changing times. I've grown to like Rose. Edith has been one of my favorite characters since the beginning, and I'm glad she finally seems to have things going her way. Plus she's easily the most attractive of the Crawley sisters when she's styled right.

Jeff is a pilot, not a doctor. It might've been allowed during their first season, I don't remember, but it certainly hasn't been since. Teams can only use the U-Turn against another once during the Race, regardless of whether it is a blind U-turn or not, which is why some of them don't use it the first one. We've heard multiple teams over many seasons mention not using it because they might need to use the second one later.

So it sounds like I didn't really miss much by not finishing the old episode of Grey's I was watching and rewinding the tape to use for this new episode. Good to know. I've been trying to break the Grey's addiction, and this season just might finally accomplish that.

She does have great hair. Heck, her whole look is really gorgeous. Too bad her singing isn't.

I listened, rather than watched, so my comments are only about how the performers sounded: Sarina-Joi was easily the best of the right. That was absolutely terrific. How did she not make it this far previously? Katherine was next best, and although she had a couple of wobbles, vocally, I loved her performance. There's a little rasp there that I really enjoy. Tyanna wasn't at her best, but it was still very good, and I liked that she didn't start it in a higher key. I didn't want to like Jax, but damn if it that wasn't good. Her personality bugs, though, so we'll see. There's something about Emily's voice I like, but she's so cutesy and gimmicky that she'll probably drive me crazy soon enough. I'd put her through this round though. Alexis was nothing special but did sound good, but honey, no false twang! Although at least Keith wasn't the one who commented on it, because, really, does he ever sound Australian when he sings? Maddie and Lovey sounded alright but were boring and vanilla. Dime-a-dozen singers who shouldn't make it much farther. Shannon picked exactly the wrong song for her voice, and did not sing it well. She sounded almost nasal, but not like that's how she normally sings; more like she had a bad head cold and was really congested. I hope she makes it through because I really like her voice. Adanna started out off-key, did improve a bit, but I'm just not a fan of belters in general, and she isn't even that good a belter. Loren sang a boring ballad and was a little off-key as well. Then she yelled at me some. It was everything that made me think she shouldn't have made the top 24 to begin with. Skyfall was obviously a one-off performance for her. Shi chose the wrong song, then proceed to sound terrible singing it. That had nothing to recommend itself as a vocal performance at all. My picks to stay: Sarina-Joi, Katherine, Tyanna and Jax, all based on last night, with Shannon and Emily based on cummulative performances. Some combination of Alexis and either Maddie or Lovey for the last two spots, I guess. Although I'd be okay with Adanna since I think she did have a good performance last time out. But Loren and Shi definitely need to go.

The actual action of the episode does not bear out this interpretation. Ichabod's actions are clearly deliberate, and are in aid of Abbie, not in self-defense. Mison can put whatever wash on he wants, but even the dialogue makes it clear that Ichabod's killing Katrina is a choice he made.

This is exactly why I don't buy Goffman's "oh, we planned this all along", because if they really had this resolution to Katrina's story in mind from the beginning, the slide into evil would've been done more gradually, been more believable, and thus, made the character interesting from much earlier on.

I don't believe it was as bad as some people thought, but when it was (all the monotonous Katrina-centric episodes which added nothing to the show and took the focus away from the fundamental core of two witnesses trying to stave off armageddon) it was pretty bloody awful. And that was a function of the producers and the writers changing the show's focus, not of increasing the number of episodes. My unpopular SH opinion is that I didn't mind Hawley and didn't think he took away from the main focus too much. And Katrina could've worked as a character had she been made more morally suspect (and then outright evil) sooner. But ineffective good witch Katrina and annoying second season Henry just dragged the show down.

It did seem like the samurai doing the ordering asked for a different type of sake on each try, but we only saw a couple of tries, so I'm not sure. And as ProfCrash pointed out, they really only had to keep sending out the same bottle until it was the right one. I think the producers thought the language issue would make it more difficult; I'm pretty sure that's why most of the teams chose the other task.

Guys whose performances I really enjoyed and who I would put through: Nick, who was fantastic Quentyn, who needs to lose the nose ring, but man, he sounded terrific Clark, who overdid it a little at the end but otherwise was great Mark, who maybe needs to loosen up, performance-wise but who sounded wonderful If I had to pick two more: Savion, who chose a song which didn't suit him but he sounded very good Trevor, who didn't sound his best but really knows how to perform The others: Rayvon sounds good but is boring to me Riley sounded not so good at the beginning of his song, was interrupted by the idiots at Fox 45 pressing the wrong button so that I missed the middle, but the end of his song was good Qaasim chose I song I don't like and one that is not a singer's song, and was vocally mediocre on it (I was out of the room so I can't judge the performance aspect, only how it sounded) Adam went first for a reason and that is also not a singer's song, meh vocal, meh performance Daniel is fine for a ten year old; they should've let him mature a few more years Michael chose a Michael Bolton abomination and therefore I couldn't even listen My four to go home: Daniel, Michael, Qaasim and Adam (who seems like a cool guy but just isn't that good a singer)

He had no way of knowing that. He saw Katrina attacking Abbie, and Abbie only, and stepped in to save her. Period.

They didn't when I was on, but that was a few years ago. I actually thought he did the pose as a jokey thing and I found it rather amusing; I doubt he was being serious. OMG - Die Hard was the FJ!!!! Had I been Dava-Leigh, I'd have been tempted to bet big on 1980s Movies even though that would've been stupid. But hey, I could've won $40,000 for knowing my favorite Christmas movie. (Why, oh why, couldn't I have gotten THAT FJ instead of stupid Inventors?!?!?!?)

It interested me because the Amritsar Massacre (or Jallianwala Bagh Massacre) came up during the episode of The Jewel in the Crown which aired on my local PBS station two hours earlier. What a coinky-dink.

Thanks, but I meant the clue that referenced Bar Rescue. I should've been more specific. I'm sorry.

I do think NPH sucked as host last night, but I agree that Billy Crystal got less funny over the years he hosted. And I blame him for every host seeming to think that he/she needs to do a song at the beginning; not sure if Billy did it first, but he certainly made it an expected part of his hosting schtick. And yes, if an Oscar winner wants to talk about their political/social views or activism, I say go for it. I may not agree with them (I certainly didn't with the woman involved in making Citizenfour), but I'm not offended by them including it in their Oscar speeches.