Gummo

Even though they're the final 3 and competing for the half-mil, the atmosphere in that house must be so much more pleasant with Austin the delusional, needy, grandiose, whiny bully-baby gone.

Re: that Julie Chen tweet (can't seem to copy it for some reason): Just when you thought Austin couldn't be a bigger asshat....

Shelli and Austin should get together. She's just immature, insecure and needy enough to read his creepy stalking behavior as "devotion." Really, it's a perfect match!

Y'know, If I want unending chaos and random events occurring randomly, I'll watch the news. If I'm going to invest time & emotion in a story, whether written or filmed, I want a beginning, middle and end; I want at least 1 character worth following; I want resolution. GoT is delivering none of these; it's not groundbreaking or rule-shattering; it's laziness. And as for the 'killing off main characters' thing, that was really revolutionary ... when Hitchcock did it in 1960 in Psycho. Hell, it was still revolutionary in '70, '71, when Marvel killed off Gwen Stacey, Spider-Man's true love. Hell, it was still a shocker in the mid-70s when M*A*S*H killed off Col. Henry Blake. It was still shocking in the late 70s when Marvel killed off Jean Grey/Marvel Girl/Phoenix/Dark Phoenix. But by the time DC killed Superman, the whole idea had become yet another pop culture cliche. At this point, it's just -- again -- creative laziness on the part of Martin and his TV enablers" "We're incapable of generating any real interest or emotion in our viewers, so let's just kill everybody!" I mean, really, that's the best you can do?

Can't believe I'm saying this, but if that was me? I'd have to vote for Dan.

Bleagh. It's become all too obvious over the last few seasons that Burnett & Probst prefer sadism to gameplay; obviously, their ulltimate goal is to produce a tropical island version of The Maury Povich Show. I mean, really, this is what Jeff Probst considers fun? That's just sick. Who is there to root for anymore? And to top it all off, despite the editors' best efforts, it's boring. We have at least two more Pagong episodes before anything interesting can even start to happen. Yawn. So Will turns out to be just another self-righteous vicious little shit. How nice. And has Carolyn done anything since she found her idol besides sit around with that superior patronizing smirk on her face? Fragmented post because all the good points have been made already!

I really enjoyed the first half of this season, but.... Kudos to the producers and editors for making such a predictable conclusion entertaining, but they did it at the expense of coherence. That's not a great trade-off for a game that's all about the strategy. It's kinda like showing an entire football game in extreme close-up - you get a lot of great moments but absolutely no context and you really can't follow the game at all. I don't know Rodney's background, but he's got to have some acting training to be able to turn off his accent like that. I call shenanigans. That said, it was the most entertaining he's been all season. Also, he gave a confessional at the very beginning of the show that displayed actual thought! What universe is this again? Have we ever seen Dan talk to one of the women in a way that ISN'T patronizing and smarmy? Jeez, he's disgusting. Kudos to the female contestant who said (last week?) that she'd leave her child with Rodney before she'd leave it with Dan. Okay, Burnett, we get it. The big macho Jesus-freak superpatriot is the winner. Considering how Burnett's been producing those ridiculous Biblical miniseries for cable, this must be his dream season. For the rest of us, not so much. Not when they telegraph the winner half a season in. Almost forgot to add this: Hanging out in the background with an idol in her pocket is great game play for Carolyn, but damn lousy television.

Patronizing, much?

That "I'm just being nice" crap is the hallmark of a passive-aggressive little coward who thinks he get away with saying any vile insulting sexist spew if he just appends "I'm just being nice/honest/real" at the end of it.

Pennben, thanks for the link. Seems like Hali has the same opinion of Dan as the rest of us:

A few quick thoughts since most of my thoughts have already been voiced by others: 1. This season just took a turn for the dull. The next 3-4 weeks looks like a standard Pagonging, which means we'll be "treated" to episodes of utterly nonsensical editing in order to preserve the nonexistent suspense. 2. I wanted to like Carolyn, I really did. But man, is she obnoxious. And sitting on your ass waiting for others to implode while you have an idol in your pocket might be good game play, but it sure is boring TV. 3. Dan's a real passive-aggressive little coward, isn't he? He thinks he can get away with spewing the most vile, insulting things he can think of if he just follows it with "just trying to be nice," or "I'm just being honest." A vile, worthless man. 4. I don't like Mike but he's playing a good game. I'd love to see him blindsided with his idol unplayed, though. 5. Word to all the commenters who pointed out that the NoCols are supposed to be superfans but seem to have no idea how to play this game. Huddling in your insular little clique just waiting to be picked off isn't great gameplay, folks. 6. I don't care how irritating Shirin may be in real life, I love her just for the enemies she's made. 7. So, thanks to Mike, I guess from now on merged team names are going to get more and more ridiculously faux patriotic. Silly me, I remember when Survivor seasons at least made a stab at celebrating the cultures of the countries they were set in. 8. And lastly, I wouldn't go by what Probst says. He announces EVERY season as the greatest season ever and every cast as the most memorable and every twist as the most earthshattering and every blindside as the most unexpected and ....

Now, THAT was great fun. Best use of an HII I've seen in a long time! And yes, stupidest tribe name in a long time. And Hali, if the Constitution is your "religion," you understand nothing about this country. I thought Carolyn and Tyler were supposed to be the smart ones? You have to the choice to be part of a fluid seven alliance (whites & reds) with lots of ways to worm your way in or on the very bottom of a 7 or 8 person alliance (blues, whites & Will) where the top 5 are seemingly impregnable, and you choose the bottom? I don't get the logic.

Wow, Nina is such a good Survivor player, she can orchestrate a major blindside without even knowing it! I always enjoy seeing the smug douches get blindsided and this one was especially sweet. Vince's half-assed new-agey bullshit was a whisper-thin passive-aggressive veneer covering an insecure, egotistical, paranoid, jealous, petty little man and I'm so glad we don't have to watch him forcing bodily contact on the women in this game for the next 33 days, or insisting people "acknowledge" him. Random notes: I scoffed at first, but Dan DID surprise me during the challenge. Way to go, big guy. Funny that it's the white collars walking around in the buff. I'm all for consensual nudity, but making your tribemates uncomfortable is pretty selfish. Jenn may be cocky and snarky, but damn, she loves this game, and I love her for it.

I hate to say this but something about this season of TAR just feels so ... cheap to me. Like budgets have been slashed. The whole feel of the first 2 episodes has just been The Amazing Race: Low Rent. As others have already said, the whole dating thing makes it really difficult to tell the couples apart. And the selfie gimmick was annoying from minute one, and hasn't gotten any better. Esp. since I learned that they're not really 'selfies' at all, that the cameramen are holding the phones for the "selfies." So what's the #%$^#&!#$ point!? Find another way to pimp the sponsor's product, dammit! And as long as I'm complaining ... the editing has gotten way out of control. Are ANY shots more than 1.5 seconds long? Usually, that kind of editing is used to hide the fact that nothing is happening, or to add tension to slack scenes. Has TAR production lost faith in itself, and started using Bay-style seizure-inducing editing to cover up deficiencies in production? So far the season is better than TAR: Family Edition, but then again, so is a visit to the dentist. Here's hoping things pick up as the season progresses....

Thanks for the reminder! I have never rewatched a Survivor season, so I don't remember a lot of details. OK, so the game started off sleazy and invasive. All the better.

I seem to be in a minority on a lot of issues: 1. I'm enjoying the hell out of this season! You can talk about "horrible people" all you want but there's no sadistic psychos, no one with delusions of Godhood, no weird semi-catatonic old ladies in Scouting uniforms. Most of this season's players actually seem to know the game, even if they're too stupid, tired and/or hungry to play it properly. 2. And that's even more fun! Weird moves, premature moves, paranoia, flippers, floppers, alliances that last all of 10 minutes -- this is great, great stuff. 3. IIRC, it was NOT allowed for people to go through other people's stuff, or steal other people's stuff, until Rupert stole the shoes in his first appearance, and the producers thought it was so effing "cute." Everything changed right there, and Survivor got a lot more invasive and sleazy. 4. Getting rid of Jeremy now made no sense, no matter how I parse it. And that's good! That means anything can happen now. 5. I never expected Natalie to be one of my favorites after her exploits on TAR, but she's kicking some serious ass, both in challenges, and in the social game. I hope she can make it far. 6. If those people have ANY brains at all, Jon or Jaclyn go next.

I think Rocker was voted out because he was a time-bomb, too dumb and too temperamental to be trusted. The fact that people hate him made him prime third-place-goat material, but just a few weeks in and he was already making side deals and keeping secrets from his alliance. He was the biggest guy there, but his team wasn't winning anything, and having to walk on eggshells around Bruce Banner ("Don't make me angry. You won't like me when I'm angry.") had to be exhausting. And yes, people get voted out on this show for "who they are" all the time. People can vote out their competition based on whatever criteria they please, and none of it's "wrong." That's how the game is structured. That's what makes it Survivor! Both Keith and Josh made some verbal gaffes when talking about each other, but I think each in his own way was trying to be open-minded about the other. Baylor is starting to impress with her game play. I don't get the "this season is dull!" talk. I'm enjoying the heck out of it. One things bugs me, though: Shouldn't it really be called "Blood vs. Blood and Water vs. Water"?

I'm assuming there was a Chaplin-themed road block because another team came in and one of the teammates had a Chaplin bowler on and was doing a Chaplinesque walk , too (IIRC). It was probably edited out because it didn't change the rankings in any way so they cut it for other, more fun, stuff. Pure blue-skying on my part. I usually hate racers like Team Dentists but they are racing smart and he's being decent to other racers, helping them with clues and things -- and even if that is coming from an arrogant place, it's still manifesting in mensch behavior, so -- good on him. Won't miss Team Who? at all. Team Wanda Sykes is funny, exasperating and endearing, in equal measure, often at the same time. Really enjoying the season so far, except there are too many gimmicks. Ah well, it's the Reality Game Show That's Been On A Long Time disease. Survivor suffers from it, too. But I do love Phil popping up along the route while racers dash madly behind him! And I agree that the racers are getting off way easy so far this season, TWO English speaking countries to start!? Come on! Though I have to admit, that the tasks in England turned out to be a lot harder & more frustrating than they looked at first. Fun stuff all around.

Eccleston, Tennant, Smith -- they all "felt" like the Doctor. Even with the changes in style. Capaldi - at least the way he's being written and directed -- does not. companionenvy and tvtalk get it -- there's no sense of wonder or adventure. Mostly both the Doctor and Clara act put-upon. "Oh geez I have to save the universe AGAIN!? But I just started another load of laundry. Oh, well, if I have to...." Eccleston was tragic, Tennant was steely, Smith was boyish and goofy, Capaldi is just nasty and short-tempered all the time, like my cat when her stomach's upset. Of course, with my cat, I can shove a sliver of an antacid down her throat (doctor's orders). Maybe someone should do that with 12? I was hoping for a characterization more like Eccleston's -- more grim, more removed, more alien -- but instead we've got poor Peter Capaldi trying to take Matt Smith's dialogue and make it his own. Moffat was great as one of a stable of writers, but as showrunner and main writer, he's proven to be one-dimensional. He doesn't write characters, he writes tics. And generally only one set of tics (kudos to those who pointed out the Sherlock resemblance). There's no chemistry among his characters because they're not characters, they're signposts. On the plus side, I loved Danny's takedown of the Doctor. And I like the new credit sequence, even if steampunk is totally 20 years ago.

Ha -- all the designers who appear on this show talk like their next draped top will cure cancer or bring world peace, so that's nothing new.

As for the other designers, it was a rare episode where I agreed with the judges! Kini and Korinna's looks were both gorgeous,and if Korinna had been able to get closer to finishing hers, it could well have won. Emily's was awful but Sean's mutant peace sign vest and jump suit were worse. It really did look like the product of a not-very-skilled home seamstress. I liked Char's, it looked like a lot of fun for the girl wearing it. And weren't all the kids great? Though I do wonder how late it was by the time they got to critiquing Emily's, her poor model looked like she was way past her bedtime!

She didn't "defend her design", she completely dismissed their comments with her usual insufferably smug, sefl-righteous, obnoxious attitude. Even when she was saying she was listening and taking in their words, it was obvious she wasn't, and her condescending lying was just more attitude. In any case, finally, Heidi and common sense prevailed. A four-year-old would have been embarrassed to wear that thing.

Thanks, Julia. Very enlightening. I guess I haven't paid close enough attention to the "tells".

This may be the wrong place for this question but: What is it about Tim Gunn & 'Under the Gunn' that everyone found so objectionable (other than that the show was kinda clumsy and stupid)?

Best eppy of a lackluster season so far. *sings* What a difference a day makes, 24 little houuuurrsssss.... I really liked Fade as a person and enjoyed his comments, but his work has become so drab. It was his time. I find I like a lot of Sandhya's sketches but the finished work always disappoints. This suggests that it's her execution skills that are deficient, not her designs. Either way, the novelty has worn off and she needs to go. The same with Korina - I thought her sketch was interesting but she didn't have the chops to pull it off. What she did put on the runway -- well, she was lucky she had immunity, and she knew it. I'm in the minority - I liked Amanda's design and think if the execution had been better, she might have been in the top three. It was whimsical and strange. Kini's was brilliant and deserves all the accolades it gets. But Sean took a huge risk that paid off in pure magic. (I mean, can you imagine if it hadn't worked -- oh my, what an ugly mess that would have been.) The dye not only worked, the resulting patterns were actually attractive and his color choices were restrained and right on the mark. His model twirling in the middle of the runway was very smart, also. It gave the dye time to spread and also helped it spread evenly -- she became living Spin Art! Emily, 1980 called, Grace Jones wants her playsuit back. Char -- yawn. As usual. Alexander -- I have no idea what he's doing here, either. But I guess his presence is a sop to all Guppy-Americans. Sandhya may be tone deaf to the feelings of others, but my o my is she hypersensitive to her own. Even though it was only a preview for next week, I was already shouting, "Shut up, Sandhya!" at her latest metldown.