JessDVD

Alice in Wonderland: I nearly passed out on the floor when I saw Kaysie Lackey assisting the girl who ended up winning. An actual Challenge competitor! A good one! Totes not surprised that their work was far and above the best. And I never even really liked Kaysie. The "Big Catastrophe" flew on and off the screen so fast I had a hard time figuring out if it was contrived or reenacted, or not. That Alice was terrifying. I am really wondering if these "parties" to "celebrate" the XXth "anniversary" of random movies, are made for TV or were already happening.

I think another key difference is that there is hope for the Bateses(eses) children outside of the family "businesses". I've been trying to pay as little attention as possible to the Duggars since Joshgate, but I did read the article about the adult children that was in People mag a month or so ago, and while they tried to talk up what the adult children are doing and make it sound like they are Doing Things, they are all basically just "working" for the various Duggar enterprises. Obviously the Bateses are in a different situation, not having a couple million dollars of collateral from doing various TV shows for 12 years, so they don't have as extensive of a family business - but at the same time, those are the families that might *need* the adult children to continue working in the family biz to keep it afloat. It seems those days perhaps did exist for the Bateses but now as the children age (and the finances have improved from the show), it seems they are at the very least encouraged to go out and Do Things that aren't just working for Mom & Dad. I hope that the bubble doesn't burst for the Bateses. We've made it into "plotlines" that are clearly just made for TV, as opposed to the cameras following them doing things they were already doing; if we get to vacations that were clearly comped for the sake of the show, I am out. (That was about where the Duggars' show jumped the shark for me)

Damn. That was a heavy 45 minutes. How exactly were those triplets born? Were they supposed to be identical? I thought I heard them say something about implanting more embryos than they should, which means fraternal triplets, aka they should not be identical, just like brothers born at the same time. Identical triplets, which is how they played the kids off as, is one embryo that split into 3 upon implanting. (fertility lecture out) Child suicide bombers... I don't even know what to say other than that is a heavy topic and I'm not sure how much I want to think about the fact that kids are in those situations around the world.

On October 3rd, he asked me what day it is.

That's how I feel. I totally respect their decision to leave acting and I'm glad for them that they are doing so well and functioning adults and all the child acting didn't ruin them (I'm looking at you, Lindsey Lohan), but I thought it would have been very kind and considerate of them to give the show a 2 minute cameo. I don't know anything about their fashion lines or if one could say if their lines would have been as successful as they are without the name recognition they have, from being launched as child actors from Full House. So I wouldn't say that they "owe" Full House anything for their current level of success (although it's likely that the name recognition helped significantly over Jane Missouri who would love to design clothes but hasn't been able to break into the field), but again, it would have been kind and considerate to give them a 2 minute cameo, a half day of her time, and then moved on.

Aww, we really like that one. Our favorite moments include when the lieutenant tells Gibbs and Ziva that her water broke and they stare at her like, "... lol what?!" and she says "Ooh-rah?", and Palmer telling Breena's dad (excellent casting BTW) why they do what they do.

I'm amazed that y'all can spit out those episode titles so easily, unless you had to go look them up first. ;) I have a list of favorites but I'm not sure I'd call them compelling, specifically. I'm looking at Wikipedia and I thought One Shot, One Kill; and The Good Samaritan (both from S1) were really good stories but not super compelling. My picks for compelling are: 1) So It Goes (Young Ducky #1) 2) Frame Up (Abby's assistant Chip tries to frame Tony) 3) Bait (The kid who thinks his mother isn't dead and takes his classroom hostage. LOVE that one!) 4) Newborn King (Gibbs delivers baby of Lieutenant + Afghan king) 5) Truth or Consequences Honorable mentions: Baltimore, Rekindled (the arson case with Tony flashbacks), about 95% of S1 & S2 (nothing with Ari), and Parental Guidance Suggested (the one where the daughter turns out to be the perp)

Sigh. I console myself by "liking" his page on Facebook and admiring the amazing creations he continues to make. It bums me out hardcore that FN isn't bringing back any of those greats for these shows. I think I'll submit a request for Cake Wars to do a special ep with 4 of the greats. I'd love to see Mike McCarey show up on a random ep of Cake Wars but he'd clean the floor over the people on there, so they probably wouldn't do that. A show with 4 of them would be more evenly balanced in ability and would be a fun viewer special sort of thing. And if they got Kerry Vincent to be the guest judge next to Ron and Waylynn...!

I thought the modeling chocolate catastrophe looked re-enacted, the way she was putting it on and taking it off. By the way, next week is Sesame Street cakes and if they do not get Mike McCarey on there to make his Big Bird again from the Challenge days, I will be sad. Since there's no way that's going to happen, I'll just go ahead and be preemptively sad.

And one would have thought they'd have plenty of material for contrived catastrophe with the guy who almost didn't finish too.

If one is not totally paying attention, the first time of the Big Catastrophe might appear to be legit, but then they immediately replay it and it's totally obvious it's faked. I didn't think any of these cakes were much of anything to write home about, really. And listening to Ron and Waylynn harp on the non-creativity of carrot cake got old fast too. If you want them to not use carrots, don't give them carrots. And really, use cabbage where you would carrots? GROSS.

Totally predictable and totally awesome first episode. I only watched the original as an adult so it's not quite the nostalgic feels that it could be but I still got a little mushy at basically every moment. Loved 95% of it. I hope they dial Steve's character back a little bit in future episodes. I never liked Kimmy in the original but I'm liking her so far. Ramona was super cute. I like DJ's kids. I hope that I never again have to see so much of Jodie Sweetin's breasts. Trying to spread out the enjoyment rather than binge on the whole season.

I do agree with this - I wouldn't fault her for the *feeling* of being irritated. I *do*, however, think it was a bad choice on behalf of the writers to have her punishing Tony for it, and if she were an actual person, would fault her for that. :-) (Right.... these people are fictional?!)

In spite of that terrible writing, I did enjoy her character until the OMG MAH SON bit. Miles better than MAllison Hart IMO. Jeanne- I get that she has every right to be furious with Tony over all of that (although her anger really should be directed at Jenny, may she not rest in peace), but I still get irritated at her punishing Tony over something that is his JOB, now at least. He was given a direct order by his direct supervisor, to ask Jeanne/David about their connections to doctors in Africa. Then when it turned out there was a connection to La Grenouille, what is he supposed to do, anyway? (I will concede that Gibbs could have asked someone else to go talk to her, although then she'd probably get her panties in a knot over Tony avoiding her, because as Julia has said, women are written terribly on this show)

This show is really not going to be as good without Tony. Sigh. Although I could get behind Taft replacing Tony. I know that would never happen. OK, so I've never gone through heartbreak or finding out my dad is an arms dealer and now dead and all that and I know that grief does not know a timeline. But. All that stuff with Jeanne was season 4, right? So almost 10 years ago in the narrative of the show? Is it me or is that kind of a long time for Jeanne to still be hanging on to Tony? That stuff about feeling whole again, I think would make sense if it were maybe a year or two ago. I totally missed the setup with the shrink. I was trying to figure out if it was one of Taft's coworkers. More Ducky references. Always.

I thought Megan was getting an edit to be the plucky young overcoming all odds to win - but her cake was also the best so there we go. The lady who was eliminated first at the end had really great clean work, but I thought her characters weren't all that accurate, especially Shrek and Fiona. I wasn't super impressed with the runner up's characters either. At least all 3 had clean, complete cakes. I totally believe that Dreamworks was throwing a 15 year anniversary of Shrek party. Oh wait, no I don't.

I don't dislike McGee but I see the point too. I also wholeheartedly agree that the character doesn't have the right stuff to replace Tony. I'm not even sure what I think is the best approach, go the complete opposite direction from Tony or aim for similar but not identical... who knows. All I know is that my enjoyment of the second half of this season has gone down knowing that Tony is leaving since the current version of Tony is my favorite part of the show. I'm sure I'll still watch next season but assuming there's only a few seasons left, I can see my future re-watches ending around now. Like how I watched Numb3rs all the way though initially but when I re-watch, I usually stop around the part where Megan leaves.

I am rather impressed at the actor's portrayal of Neil as a man with autism. I have a good friend who has a child with autism, he's about 14, and Neil's mannerisms were pretty similar to the kid I know. Gabriel: I have no words, other than THE HELL?!

Point taken.. I just find Adam's character supremely unlikeable and unattractive and thus have a hard time seeing why Kono even wants to be with him and tend to think that she's better off without him. Thus, instead of feeling sorry for her, my reaction was more like, "Dump him and go be with Fong".

I'd bet that Erin & Chad simply just aren't using any kind of BC and that's why she got pg so fast BUT I do know someone who has kids about 15 months apart and was regularly and correctly using a reliable form of BC between the 1st and 2nd. Sometimes our best efforts don't work in that department. So it's just barely possible that was the case for E&C. I doubt they were using anything hormonal but NFP can be very effective when used correctly. And yet there is always that margin of error. I wish a successful pregnancy, labor & delivery for her and I hope that they take and follow any good solid medical advice about future pregnancies.

Oh please, Lord, do not let Abby be involved in any way, shape or form with Gabriel. Just no. Just no. Writers, you have done this enough. Find some new material, like letting people be happy in a relationship for longer than 10 seconds! I could go for more episodes in which Chin walks around in a tiny towel though. Was that Amber/Melissa with Danny? It took me until her second appearance to figure out that Steve's person is the one from the hiking episode. Show did not compel me to feel a single feel over Kono watching her wedding video and crying.

A moment of silence for the failed NCIS: Red, even if the premise was weird and implausible, for no John Corbett in my NCIS-verse. ... Anyway, I agree that it doesn't make much sense for Page to be an early intro of Tony's replacement. (My 7 year old is finally reading reasonably well and is reading this out loud over my shoulder. This is an odd development) I'm always a fan of a couple missing persons episodes per season, since on TV they always end up okay and not at the bottom of a river or something. I appreciate that SecNav, not that I remembered that was who she was without the ep description, was a relatively normal female in power on this show since Lord knows we haven't seen basically any of them ever. My enjoyment of the show honestly has been somewhat diminished since the announcement that MW is leaving. I've never witnessed a kidnapping/ransom in real life or in the news in my area or really ever at all, but I always wonder if the people who do those things are actually that organized enough to bleach a car and put bombs in all the cars around the basement of the garage (I hope those cars' owners were current on their auto insurance) and all that stuff. Although if you have the anatomy to kidnap the secretary of the Navy's kid and want to actually get away with it, I suppose you're probably the sort that'll make plans in advance too.

I missed half of the middle due to puking kid, but I did catch the shark head Big Catastrophe, and I think something was wonky in that because there is no possible way they were just planning to put that 1 foot tall shark head onto that 2 foot tall pole remainder. I went back and watched the cake crumbling part and agreed, it was ridiculous, contrived, and probably re-enacted. But that lady was pretty much sunk from the get-go. I love when the judges can't come up with anything to criticize in someone's design, so they say things like "She might be showing off too much". Right.

I thought Siggy was being ridiculous too. She was all, "THEY GAVE ME A SNAKE!"... well, you weren't in the pilot episode, you know what the show is about, expect weird things. She should have just been glad she didn't get something like pig rectum. I also thought the judges were being unnecessarily accommodating to her. (Sympathy is not a natural feeling in the DVD household, if that's not obvious) I have an irrational love for Lance for many reasons, one of them being that the place where he is/was executive chef, I camped at a couple times as a kid with my family. I think I found that ep of ICA on YouTube and somehow forgot that Geoffrey Zakarian and Alex Guareschelli are both Iron Chefs now. It's like I didn't even watch their seasons of Next Iron Chef...

Whoa, I missed that Madison was on ICA. Excuse me while I go look that up... The douche competitors on this show are so frequent that they all blend together unless they're really egregious like Penny (right?) on the All-Stars or that one who interrupted Alex (oh no she didn't) with "Can I speak?". I think that one was named Lauren.