JessDVD

For the first time since cake wars started, I recognized a face! One of the chocolatiers, Charity, was on ultimate cake off on TLC and Halloween wars too. They actually managed to find some decent talent this time! That chocolate bear in the first round was adorable and all the other ones were great. Even the lady eliminated wasn't terrible, although I thought her roses were kind of pathetic. No fake catastrophe too... Is this even cake wars?!

I want a Chopped jersey. Is my takeaway from the tailgate episode

That was... interesting. I thought for sure that since the whole time Grover was talking on the phone to Chicago PD, the camera was zoomed in on his face, that it was going to pan back out and show, I don't know, a bunch of cops with guns up at him, or the chair empty with his friend gone, or SOMETHING. but apparently not. Or not yet. Episodes like that make me wonder if the writers actually thought about how the characters look when saying those lines, and if the directors actually thought about how those lines sound when they're filming. I'm surprised that nobody through the entire production of that, realized that Grover looked completely unhinged the whole time, unless it was on purpose and next week we'll find out that he ran out of sanity meds or this is a way to write him off the show because he actually is a sociopath and is now being committed or something. We're all acquainted with how lunatic the H50 guys are, often, but there is a "too much?" extent and I'd say we are well past the line with this ep.

And then they're all, OMG I just LOOOVE Dr. Seuss to each other when they get back and draw their obviously for the sake of the camera "plan" for their cake, like they didn't already make it. I think the biggest issue with Batter Up is that they have to bake cakes in that time also, and I wouldn't be surprised if they aren't told the ingredients they have to work with, so there actually is some planning time. They must know that round happens since the show isn't brand new anymore, but I could see that they aren't told what the challenge will be, like Panda-ize yourself or whatever. Kung Fu Panda Or Dreamworks Is Paying For This Show In Hopes That More Than Three People Will Show Up To See Their Lame Movie Threequel Since Pixar They Are Not (or something like that): Meh. I watched the lady "drop" her cake twice, trying to figure out if that was made up for TV or actually happened. Uncertain. You'd think if she actually needed to put that cake on that pan, that she'd have the guy bring the pan to right next to where the cake was rather than "Let me awkwardly move this cake by hand over 5 feet", but still unsure. Bummer that Eliminated First At End didn't get a better scene because her characters of a lame B-movie were quite good. I thought the rest of them were pretty underwhelming.

I have secretly hoped this whole time that Kate's death was faked and she's been in witness protection... But yeah, that would be pretty bad writing with the way they did her death. A Mike Franks esque thing would be fine.

Yep, pretty much. FN, the concept of people making large cakes is interesting enough on its own without contriving drama out of it. Mr. DVD and I introduced Mr. Roger's Neighborhood and Reading Rainbow to our kids, remembering how much we liked both as kids ourselves, not remembering that quite a lot of them have segments about "How People Make _____", which we concluded was the precursor to "How It's Made", which we both like to watch now as adults. Because that idea is *interesting* to people (or at least, some people) and if I wanted to watch drama, I'd tune into daytime TV or something. Just let me watch the people make the cakes. But now that the obvious, obvious fakery has happened 2 weeks in a row, I will be paying special attention in the weeks following to spot it because it's inevitable.

Things I would really like to know: Do they actually have to use cake that they bake *that day*? I've watched bunches of cake shows and all of them use cake that doesn't have to cool in time. It seems like an excessively unnecessary wrench to throw into the show. And, do they actually serve the competition cake, both for the judges in round one, and the people in round two. Every other cake show I've seen, they serve sheet cakes separately. Tonight's excellent fakery: the fishbowl cake coming out of the pan. They clearly removed the cake, then put the pan back on the cake and the camera recorded them lifting the pan off the cake. Come on, FN, you never felt the need to fake up Challenge, right? The guy's details weren't great. Too much of the black lines. Dr Seuss books are picture books, not 4" tomes like what he made. Girl who presented second missed the mark on the characters. Girl who presented at the end is the clear victor IMO and as the judges had nothing negative to say in what they aired, they should agree. Her books were perfect. I'm ready for the salted caramel craze to die down. I love how they say "Ten. THOUSAND. DOLLAAAAARS" like it's some big life changing chunk of cash, not more like $7k after taxes that you should really split with your teammate and if Cake Wars is anything like Chopped, also has to pay for your travel expenses.

That was absolutely a different kid on Steve's back at the end. Mary is best on the show when she doesn't speak. I like Chin and Abby, and I agree with the poster upthread who said that TPTB really don't need to throw in all the random characters to carry the show. The core 4, plus Grover and then periodic relevant Jerry, Max, Adam if we must, etc, can carry the show on their own. Chin is absolutely a gentlemen who would walk a lady to the door! and MOST importantly, NO GABRIEL! (The ep could have been the cast reading the phone book and I would think it's good if there's no Gabriel)

Isn't Gabriel supposed to be some huge Wo Fat-esque criminal mastermind? And he can just waltz into Halawa without any law enforcement professionals (something you'd think Halawa would have a couple of) noticing? I just don't understand this plotline. I thought that Adam being safely in the aforementioned Halawa would have him on the screen less but sadly this is not the case. I'm ready to skip to the part where Adam and Gabriel both drown in an unfortunate yachting accident or something. Gored by a rabid water buffalo. Anything. I think marriage counseling saves marriages but I can't imagine that particular 'style' of counseling has a high success rate although I think those scenes were all there for the lulz so maybe just never mind.

The only pro here is that I probably won't have to see Senior after this season ever again. I agree, DiNozzo as a character has remained too stagnant for too long and I can understand why MW might want to move onto other things. In real life, even if an NCIS agent preferred to remain second in command (which I could see, theoretically, not everyone has the leadership skills or the desire to be the team lead), I don't think his life otherwise would be as stagnant as DiNozzo's has. The writers seem to have never wanted to age Tony or Abby. Gibbs and Ducky are still interesting even if stagnant because they're old enough that they have enough history to keep them interesting. Like how the two young Ducky eps have been hugely popular (here, at least). Tony's schtick has gotten old IMO because his character now has to be what, like 40? and he's still written to act 22 most of the time.

Well, highlights from last night: How none of the cakes had the slightest bit to do with the new movie. I know it was filmed months ago but on Food Network Challenge (which I am constantly comparing to this show), when they would do movie challenges before the movie came out, they would show the competitors the movie. Pony up, FN. I want Ron Ben-Israel to come to my house and read everything I have to read, out loud to me. My favorite part was the lady with the flame explosion thing "dropped" her pan of sugar onto the floor and then fixed it by jabbing the broken pieces into the cake. When they showed her "running into" the teammate with the pan and "dropping" it, you can see the cake with the broken sugar pieces already jabbed into it, on the edge of the screen. ... Right. Also, her characters looked nothing like anything.

I don't personally know anyone who has Russian roots (parents or self born there) but if I did, I would probably just assume that he/she is a spy because if you believe TV, everyone from Russia is a spy. I would have preferred Tony or Tim to go to LA and pass over the 57 or so Bishopanvils being dropped. Who in the creative studios said "I've got a great idea! Let's have Jake cheat on Bishop!" should be fired. I agree that new girl is coming in well. I like all of the people on NOLA now that the show has gone on long enough that I have a clue about who's who and maybe a half sentence about their background. Sebastian - All you have to say to Abby is, "Your brother is an adult over whom I have no control. I'm sorry that this is frustrating for you but your reaction is not my responsibility to control". This is more on the mothership part of the ep but there was no need for any suspense about Luca being dead, because there is no way on the blue earth that the writers would cause that kind of strife in Abby's life. Everyone else, sure, but Special Snowflake Abby, never.

I always found jealous Abby WAY more obnoxious, because hello, SHE broke up with him, not the other way around. It's like she doesn't want him, but nobody else is allowed to have him either. No thanks. Abby's schtick wore thin for me somewhere around season 3 and here we are 10 seasons later. Fortunately it's not every episode, but I could make a long, long list of Abby moments that drove me nuts where the show clearly wants us to side with Abby. Top on the list is the above obnoxiousness whenever Tim had the slightest bit of interest in a female, immediately followed by the entire episode of Dog Tags (which I refuse to rewatch) and that one where she was being stalked by the weirdo and was staying at Tim's and he went to get her toothbrush and told her not to open the door and she got abducted by the weirdo and somehow all this was Tim's fault.

Yes, as much as Gibbs is the show, I also have a hard time seeing it continue without MW. I think they would either have to dramatically change direction, or find someone as charismatic and appealing as MW to try and replace him, in order to keep the current success of the show. I know opinions vary on Bishop but Ziva wasn't original to the show and Lord knows opinions vary on her (Captain Obvious to the rescue!). While Tony doesn't have 100% support either (I assume), he's such an anchor of the show that it's hard to imagine the show without him. It was easy to imagine the show without Ziva because we have 2 seasons of it for reference. Maybe it was hard to imagine the show without Kate 11 years ago when she died at the end of the season but the show was new enough that I'd guess it wasn't too hard.

I don't remember that specific episode, but the writers do continue to trot out the tired, nay sleeping plotline of someone is visiting NCIS, and they connect with either McGee or Abby, whichever is the opposite gender, and then the other of McGee and Abby gets unnecessarily and obnoxiously jealous. It's tapered a bit since McGee and Delilah have lasted, but there was awhile when it was like, come on writers, it's been over ten years since they dated, it's time for this one to go to bed.

#3

I always assume at least half of the episode is either staged or re-enacted (or possibly both). As if the teams just drew a quick sketch and then handed that to their construction guys. They had to have planned that in advance, there's no way they just made it up on the spot. I think most of the sugar breakage scenes are probably re-enacted, the odds that the camera would just so happen to be on the sugar as it falls every time, is pretty unlikely. And there are probably plenty of other interesting bits that never make it to the episode. I'm glad I'm not in charge of editing 5 hours of competition down to 42 minutes. My kids watched the finale today and both shrieked for joy when JF won. We also had a discussion this morning about how sugar can break.

Coming in for a few more thoughts. Adam Campbell as Young Ducky is simply amazing. I want a spin-off of his adventures. CBS, get on that. I thought they could have come up with some kind of reason for Shrew Stepmom to be taking Nicholas, other than Shrew Stepmom is shrew, but there are some sick and demented people out there, so I can roll with it. I'm still really over the Bishop thing. I was in the Affair Is Cover camp and I think I still am but I find myself caring less. I like it when they're all in committed relationships, that are all 99% offscreen, but if I can't have that, I'll take them all not being in relationships, that are all 99% offscreen.

I'll be tearing up here on the couch until further notice... So over Bishop and all of that. Just move past it, if nobody on this show is going to be in a decent relationship then let's just get to that point and end the drama.

Wow! I am amazed that they gave the win to Jack Frosters. The whole time, they kept praising W3K for what I thought were not the strongest pieces (Toyland? Those awful Charlie Brown faces?), and dinging JF for nitpicks. I couldn't believe JF did another one of those fruit totem poles though. W3K's design was... weird. Nothing about it spoke remotely Christmas to me. And I thought they just threw candy on there for the sake of throwing candy on there. JF's landscape was weak, but I want to take those penguins home with me. Hardcore eyeroll at the segment of filler with the kids who are way, way too old to believe in Santa Claus, being all "IT'S SANTA" to the poor underpaid intern who dressed up as Santa and handed out wrapped empty boxes to the kids. Jonathan Bennett is so weird. Anyone heard of any of the guest judges from anywhere else? The only one I knew anything about was the older brother from Home Alone, in the sense that I've seen Home Alone a few times and know that Kevin had an older brother. Halloween Wars, I hadn't always heard of the guest judges, but I was usually at least familiar with them, or would look them up and see that they are famous, I just hadn't happened to have heard of them (like Elvira, from the last one)

Love that one!

http://www.foodnetwork.com/shows/cake-wars/recipes.html- recipes from the show. Bread pudding was on page 2 when I looked at it, but it doesn't seem to be in any order so it might not come up on page 2 for you.

I've felt like the judges are throwing the Jack Frosters under the bus for no good reason all along. I agree they are a little one-note, but for pete's sake, if that one note is GOOD, that's not nothing either?! They kept harping on the characters' expressions, yet neglected to mention that they were the only team that created characters that remotely resembled the original ones. We Three Kings' characters were too heavy handed with the thick ropes of black fondant for smiles and eyes. The Mistletoes' were in the right direction, but their piano was hideous and not remotely accurate (have they ever SEEN one before? Three black keys, two black keys). I thought the eliminated team's design plan was good but I would have executed it differently - rather than trying to recreate the judges exactly, made some Charlie Brown-style characters that resembled them. It was too weird of a contrast having these human looking things (that skin tone was way off) at the Charlie Brown party. It made me think of that Sesame Street Challenge from days of yore, where Lauren Kitchens made the three judges as Sesame Street characters. They loved it. Although all 3 of them had better senses of humor than these two, and that includes Kerry Vincent in the 3. Anyway, topic. I liked all 3 teams and wouldn't have been sorry to see any of them in the finale. I think W3K has the best design skills, and JF have the best cake/sugar/carving skills. It'll be interesting to see which comes on top.

Mac & cheese episode: Ted: Dessert- have we taken this mac & cheese theme one round too far? Alex, without hesitation: Yes.

Yes, the song choices stunk. The Jolly Old St Nicholas display could pretty much have been about any Santa Claus song out there. It seemed like the teams were choosing their songs although I've generally suspected those "planning" times are staged, since they have to have armature and so on available beforehand. And out of the entire lexicon of Christmas songs, they chose *those*? Talking about FNC has made me realize how much I miss it too. Someone needs to get Mike McCarey, Bronwen, Joshua and Jason, and the others on shows like Cake Wars. I'd totally watch those greats compete on something like Cake Wars. Also: my 6 year old is currently in the play room next to the room with my desk where I am, playing with her Legos and re-enacting an episode of Cake Wars. I've heard the words sugar, chocolate, and tasting element.