bluepiano

Regarding the commercial for Direct TV and "no wires," I would imagine that the portion of the population that opposes gay marriage would also be against human and marionette marriage. Although unlike in a gay marriage, apparently humans and marionettes can produce offspring. Not sure if that would make it better or worse in their eyes. But seriously, once they showed the human guy with the marionette wife and marionette kid, the agency could not resist capitalizing on what they knew everyone was thinking about. Human and marionette sex. So we get the guy laying on his back in bed and the "like what you see?" marionette negligee dance. When kinky turns to creepy. I initially found the "Framily" commercials to be mildly amusing, but they seem to be on every 5 minutes, no matter what you're watching, and commercials that try hard to be intentionally hip and edgy get annoying fast. Speaking of annoying, that goony looking kid with the over-the-top southern drawl needs to go. And which one is "Dad," the gerbil or the older black guy? All this hipness is confusing.

Chiming in late, because I just saw this episode, but it accomplished something I never would've thought possible. It made me have at least a little bit of sympathy for two really unpleasant people. (You know those people who get arrested for slavery, because they keep some illegal immigrant under virtual lock and key and threaten to report them if they complain? Amy struck me as the kind of person who could do that. And that previously unseen clip, where Sammy curses at and threatens to call the police on a guy who's walking out after waiting an hour for a pizza, was truly appalling). But what was really served by giving them more exposure, other than Kitchen Nightmares getting to pat itself on the back for stirring up a social media firestorm, and also getting a cheaply produced segment of mostly old footage. At this point it seems almost like inviting someone to laugh at the mentally ill. That's probably too strong a term to use, but as others have pointed out, their problems seem to go far beyond the self-delusion of the typical KN subject. (Many of whom I suspect are made out to be worse than they really are, for the redemption arc.) When they showed the clip of Amy talking about her cats it seemed that the show was going out of its way to humiliate her out of spite. (I actually know several childless women who refer to their cats as their children. It may be sad, but it's not all that unusual). The dynamic between Sammy and Amy seems pretty obvious. She's his trophy wife, and he's not going to say anything to risk having her walk out. Considering how many times he talked about his manhood, having a younger wife (who I'm sure he considers hot) is a big status symbol for him. (Amy also has some kind of weird fixation on manhood. Her worst insult, which she used several times, is to call someone a pansy). It did feel a bit like the big guy (GR, Kitchen Nightmares) kicking around the little guy just because they can. The unused clips really didn't add anything to the story, and neither did the interview. I hope this is the last I see or hear of Amy's Baking Company for a long long time.

That's a great comparison, and I think it's definitely how she saw herself - the guitar playing blues/rock chick. That's how she came across in her great blinds performance of "Steamroller Blues." Unfortunately, Usher, who is supposed to have some understanding of blues, seems to have completely missed that. He gave her these clichéd power rock screamer songs. "Crazy on You" was from before Bria was born. The blues is timeless, but those old rock songs feel really dated. It made her sound like she was in some Vegas lounge "Legends of Rock" show. The songs choices have been pretty uniformly terrible this year, with a few rare exceptions. (Blake of all people has done pretty well with Sisaundra. Really liked "New York State of Mind," but then I'm old). At this point song choice, or even performance, probably doesn't matter. People have decided who they like, and it's all about voting blocs. That's why even though Jake's last couple of performances have been really weak he's still around. And probably will continue to be for a while. And why even if Delvin absolutely kills his next performance he's still going home. I can't imagine that he's got the same kind of solid voting bloc like Christina, Jake, or probably Josh. But God, why doesn't someone tell Josh how much better he looks without the hat that makes him look like every dweeby dude you see hanging out in your local hipster coffee shop? I initially assumed he was trying to hide the fact that he's going bald, but he actually has a nice head of hair, and without the hat looks almost handsome.. I also hate Kat's nose ring, which I realize is pretty small as nose rings go, but still makes her look like your middle aged aunt who's desperately trying to be hip. While I'm being shallow, maybe this show really is about "the voice," because this season started out with an all-time record amount of female eye candy, and now they're all gone.

In the new opening Zak says how they've spent years building up their credibility, and I always think "Really?" Then they mention how they work with some of the best experts in the field. In the past they've worked with other paranormal investigators, but this season they've brought in a number of psychics. Wasn't the whole point of this show (and Ghost Hunters) to use science, and get away from the whole business of psychics and séances? I mean, why do you need all that high tech equipment to film little blobs of light and record a few barely audible EVPs, when a psychic like Amy on the Dead Files can describe the ghosts standing in the room and report exactly what they're saying? This season they also seem to be getting more carried away with the "historical" recreations. There was a recreation in the Bannack Ghost Town episode that bugged me, when they showed the townspeople carrying the dead body of the girl who'd drowned. The camera angle, of her body hanging backwards, in her bathing suit, revealed quite a bit of cleavage. But the girl who drowned was 10 years old. Way to go, Ghost Adventures, very classy. I also feel that this season Zac is really trying to promote himself as some kind of serious philosopher about life and death. My guess is that now that he's a bit older it's starting to bug him that many people view him and his crew as a bunch of clowns. I think he actually is a pretty bright guy, but the reason I've always liked this show is that it doesn't take itself so seriously. "Ghost Adventures" is a perfect title, because it really is about going to cool places and doing cool things. I can't stand Ghost Hunters because of their whole "we're serious scientists" bit. Even the new people, who act like going through their 6 weeks of "training" is the equivalent of earning a PhD. And of course when you come right down to it, there is no such thing as a "scientific investigation" of ghosts. Because there's no observable phenomena with which to test and verify a hypothesis. (A high EMF reading indicates the presence of paranormal activity. Okay, if you say so.)