bluepiano

With you 100% on all your comments. Attraction was a like a lot of artsy shadow and dance troupes on AGT that hit you over the head with how "uplifting" and "inspiring" their act is supposed to be. I generally feel bored and manipulated. But I never had that feeling with the sand artist. I thought what she did was genuinely touching, and even after watching her segment over three times. I'm still astonished by her technique. After having some time to think about it, I'm actually ticked off by Colin Cloud's act. With these kinds of acts I'm willing to along with the assertions that nothing was set up in advance, or as they always say to the audience participant, "we never met each other before, right?" Now I'm wondering how many other times I've been "taken." Maybe Colin Cloud got pressured into doing this by Simon as a tribute to his old friend (and original AGT judge) David Hasselhoff. But that's still no excuse. Agree totally about the singers. We keep hearing praise for all the performers who have "stepped it up" since their original season. So where's the criticism of a musical act doing a repeat song? And in the case of SoS, even making top three.

I'm in a band that plays mostly blues and old r&b, but on the rare occasions we throw in a county song it's usually Hank Williams. "Jambalaya" or "Your Cheatin' Heart," and people of all ages seem to know and love them. Sorry, getting way off topic, but hey, they filmed an episode in Nashville.

With many clairvoyant or magic acts you suspect things were staged in advance, but I think the trick is to not make it too obvious. David Hasselhoff being in the designated seat was so obviously staged that for me it totally destroyed the entertainment value. Bad decision. Including the idea that a woman who looked like she was about 25 would think of David Hasselhoff, who hit his peak about 30 years ago. As I watching her I was thinking, wow, this takes so much more talent than any of the singers who get the Golden Buzzer. So I was pleasantly surprised when Terry hit the GB. He's one of my all time AGT favorites, and I believe now the only past AGT winner who's made the finals. (Darcy Lynn and Paul Zerdin didn't). For me, it wasn't his best routine, but he's always amazing. Since I'm sure all the "super fan" voting is a total farce, maybe they wanted the reigning AGT champ to go through. If the voting was legitimate, no way I think the other two of the final three this week would've been voted in. I had not seen Lost Voice Guy before. I thought he was funnier than either Samuel Comroe or Drew Lynch, other comedians whose acts are based on their disability. And though he's way more "challenged" than either of those, I never felt he was trying to enlists our sympathy, the way I often feel those others are.

The song is "Jambalaya," one of many great classics by Hank Williams, and it mentions jambalaya as well. "Jambalaya and a crawfish pie and file gumbo, cause tonight I'm gonna see my ma cher amio."

I'm baffled as well. I can only assume that the producers see him as a colorful character, and think his "personality" has entertainment value. The slobby, loud mouthed guy seems to be a staple of these cooking competition shows. Next Food Network star has had a number of them. (He's also a cartoonish ethnic stereotype, which these shows seem to like too). I really want to see Mia make the final over him, as payback for his having been so nasty towards her. I think his attitude has a lot do with his macho male chauvinism. He sees her as a "little girl" and can't imagine that that she'd be his equal or better. Ariel has seemed like the overwhelmingly obvious choice to win for so long that I'm almost afraid she won't, just so the show can have a surprise ending. I agree. But I'm sure there are a lot of chefs and line cooks working in restaurants that don't look all that different. Probably better for one's peace of mind that you don't generally get to see who's preparing your food.

I do give him credit for coming up with an original angle that enables him to market himself as something other than a sleight of hand magician, a very crowded field. So crowded that where I live sleight of hand magicians make the rounds of local clubs and bars and do their act for patrons just for tips. And the ones I've seen are really really good. It's definitely become way more "America's Got Singers" since Simon's return. It kills me that he always says, after a variety act performs, "where else would you see this than America's Got Talent." And then somehow the singers always go through at the expense of some amazing variety acts. I guess I'm still harboring a grudge about the early elimination of The Kristoff Brothers, one of my all time favorite AGT acts. The truth is that all the AGT acts that have impressed me were magicians, acrobats, hand balancers, or ventriloquists. I've never seen a singer on this show that wowed me. When I was a kid there were a lot of TV variety shows that presented variety acts. (I fondly remember the plate spinners and Chinese acrobats on Ed Sullivan). I can watch other shows to see mediocre singers doing karaoke, and I especially don't want to see little kids singing. (The dance acts and comedians generally also leave me cold.) Without DVR and FF I would never be able to sit through AGT. Or The Voice, American Idol, or any other TV competition show. They're all about 50% filler, commercials, and judges yacking to hear themselves talk.

I went to college in the "Southern Tier" of New York State. This was pre-Buffalo Wings craze, and my favorite bar food was the "spiedie, grilled marinated beef chunks served on a skewer with a slice of Italian bread to pull the chunks off the skewer and fold them into a sandwich. I haven't thought about that in years. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that there is a Wikipedia entry, according to which the spiedie is actually specific to the very location where I was eating them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiedie The product placement of cars and kitchen appliances on Top Chef doesn't bug me as much as when challenges require using a sponsor's product as an ingredient. (Sometimes the main ingredient). Then you have advertising crossing over into editorial content. And it's not even labelled "sponsored content" the way you see in newspapers and websites, though obviously everyone knows the score. TC, more than other food shows like Master Chef and Food Network Star, can be a little full of itself about their high culinary standards. (Looking at you, Tom). I guess everyone thinks Maker's Mark is cool, but you wonder where they'd draw the line if enough money was waved under the producers' noses. "For today's challenge, we're going to be cooking with two foods America really loves. Velveeta and Lucky Charms."

I liked seeing some old favorites like Tapeface, Kenichi, and Paul Zerdin, but in every other respect, this "Champions" thing has become a s---tstorm. The four acts that went through in the last two weeks were all singers. Which is just more confirmation that the "Superfan" voting thing is a farce and Simon is calling the shots, because we all know if it were up to him the finalists would be nothing but singers. (with maybe Vicki Barbolak thrown on). My theory is that former champions were paid a truckload of money to appear, and promised they would not move forward, so no worries about interference with their active careers. Notice that most of the people making the finals likely have no career. At least among the Americans, not sure about the Spanish singer, but for her its an opportunity to get exposure in the U.S. The "Champions" is about trying again to make former contestants happen who were overhyped by the producers in their original season but still couldn't win. Looking at you, Brian Justin Crum. If the voting was legitimate I just don't believe there's a snowball's chance in hell he'd have been the top vote getter. (How ridiculous are those color coded US maps showing the results? Like we're watching CNN Election Central). I hate the Golden Buzzer, since all these past contestants should now be on equal footing. Also hate Simon buzzing acts. Tom Cotter is a pro, and that was hugely disrespectful. To me, he's a throwback to comedians I saw as a kid on shows like Ed Sullivan. Meaning he actually gets on stage and tells jokes, instead of doing an entire routine about having a disability, or inviting people to laugh at him because he's ugly. (That's apparently Simon's taste in "comedy.") My other takeaway this week is that as much as I like Paul Zerdin, and was happy he won his season, I believe that Darci Lynn is a more accomplished ventriloquist. That little girl is so amazing. And I'm virtually certain now that the Professional Regurgitator is doing a very clever sleight of hand magic act. His rippling his stomach muscles and pounding his stomach are all misdirection. I'm not sure why people are disgusted by his act, since the objects he brings up are dry, not covered in digestive juices. A tip off that he's not actually swallowing anything. I just don't believe that a razor blade can be manipulated in the stomach to slice a cherry tomato, or that bolts can be placed on a screw. (How would you even locate those objects in your stomach after they've been swallowed?)

As someone who's been interested in UFOs since I was a kid, I can tell you that there are tons of people in that field with exaggerated or even completely false scientific credentials that fall apart as soon as they're closely examined. That's exactly the vibe I got off that dude. It's been amazing to me how someone can make claims like "I worked for NASA" or "I have a top government security clearance" and people will repeat and endorse those claims without ever checking. I think it's a combination of laziness and wanting to believe when someone says stuff you want to hear. Scientific skepticism is pretty much unheard of on this and many other shows on the History Channel. True story. The other day I was walking on a trail near my house and stopped to rest my foot on a rock while I tied my shoe. I noticed that there were some random letters and what might've been Roman numerals pained on the rock. No doubt these are clues to the location of buried treasure, and I will spend years and exhaust my entire financial resources trying to find it. (Well, the last sentence isn't true.)

Wow, Brett and Heather are some nasty human beings. Glad Heather is gone. Brett hopefully is next. He was a sexist, macho pig in that confrontation with Mia. It was clear to me that his main issue with her is that she's a small female, and therefore he has no respect for her. As she intelligently pointed out, his criticisms were about her facial expressions and mannerisms, not her performance in the kitchen. So if she were some 6 foot 2 dude with a deep voice, apparently he would have no issues. For several weeks now, Ariel has seemed so far and away the only logical choice to be the winner, which makes me worry that she won't win, so that they can have a surprise ending. I took it as just another example of Brett's extreme exaggeration when it comes to anything about himself. No more likely than all the conquests of women that he brags about. Just like he wants people to think he's the world's greatest lover, he wants people to think he's the baddest dude on the planet. Good point. I guess some people feel that Mia doesn't have the personality or presence to be an executive chef, but I don't think anyone can doubt her cooking ability or food knowledge, which are as impressive as anyone who's ever been on this show. I even think she might do well on Top Chef, and it's rare I've ever felt that way about any contestant on this show.

The Hot Brown, like many classic American comfort foods from an earlier era when people didn't obsess about cholesterol, carbs, or fat, is supposed to be big and messy and make you want to nap after eating it. In general, I dislike the challenges in which contestants have to take some classically hearty dish and make it frou frou or "elevated" or deconstruct it. About 90% of the time what they produce, while perhaps creative, has virtually nothing to do with the original. I think you could make a case that a lot of today's trendy restaurants are too focused on being artistic or whimsical and forget that they're actually supposed to be feeding people. In the hip city where I live, I've described the typical dining experience as paying $40 for a small plate of beautifully presented food that leaves you hungry an hour later. I know this might make me sound like a yabbo who wants to stuff himself at all you can eat buffets or be served half a cow for dinner, but I would like to think there can be a happy medium.

Over the top and totally gross. His constant talk about his deceased parents (and throwing kisses to the sky) etc. is also over the top, though I guess it's sincere. What bugs me more is his always trying to sound "ghetto." It's something a lot of white teenagers do to sound cool, but usually grow out of well before their 30s. In a lot of ways Brett is like an overgrown adolescent. (Including his bragging about his conquests with women). I would put Mia in with Motto and Ariel in the top group. She has been consistent all season. She's had some issues with teamwork in the dinner services, but when she's been on her own, cooking her own dishes, she's been pretty much flawless. But in the end, this is not a cooking competition. If it's really about finding the person most qualified to be executive chef, then Ariel should win. Motta seems way too laid back to be much of a leader or manager.

Actually, that's sort of already happened. Ancient Aliens is full of speculation about the Knights Templar who supposedly acquired, some of their secret knowledge through contact with aliens. Kathleen McGowan, who appeared on Curse of Oak Island as their resident Knights Templar expert prior to Zena Garrison, was an Ancient Aliens regular. Plus, Ancient Aliens is very big on claims that "star maps" were used by ancient civilizations to plot out the location of various holy sites and monuments. These maps had to have been given to them by aliens, since they display advanced knowledge of the cosmos. So hearing this Johnny Come Lately astrophysicist talk about "star maps" had me doing one very major eye roll. Speaking of eye rolls, this week's focus on the "90 foot stone" made me again wonder why pirates (or whoever) would risk life and limb to conceal treasure deep below the island's surface, and then leave a marker that essentially says, "hey you folks trying to find our treasure, keep digging because you're on the right track." Are we to think that people a couple of years ago were plain stupid? Or could the coded inscription say something completely different? Or more likely, could the whole inscribed stone thing be a hoax?

Echoing what many have already posted, this whole "Super Fans" thing is a total farce, and they must think we're idiots to believe there are actual people voting and that it's not all determined by the producers. Courtney Hadwin making final three was clearly the producers trying to justify all their hype around her, that was rejected by the viewers. But yeah, thank God she didn't get another Golden Buzzer. I hate the idea of a Golden Buzzer when only two acts are going through. I was not a fan of Dangerous Games the first time, and this act didn't change my opinion. About the best thing I can say about the act is that the woman is gorgeous and sexy, but that's not enough. If there had to be a Golden Buzzer, I wish it had gone to Darcy Lynn, one of the most popular AGT acts ever. I'm sure that Piff couldn't give care less about not going through. He's got his Vegas show, and I think he just came on "Champions" as a way to show his gratitude to AGT for giving him his career. Darci Lynn, on the other hand, I think really wanted to win this thing, and she's probably kicking herself for being part of this farce. I agree that there's no way that Christina would've gotten more votes if this was legitimate. To me, no AGT winner should've signed up for this farce and had there legacy tainted. Since this whole thing is fixed, I'm guessing they wanted one "international AGT" act to make the finals, and Christina was the chosen one. She starts out singing in a slow operatic style, then throws open her robe and rocks out. What a surprise. Like we haven't seen that a hundred times before. Yeah, she can sing, but her version of an iconic song had no emotion behind it. It was all flash and no substance. Not impressed. That Dutch hip hop jump roping act was at least better than the Australian boy band, but that's not saying much.

Well, it's the same narrator who does "Ancient Aliens" (same production company), and on that show he regularly gets to ask even more widely outlandish hypothetical questions. Ever since this show started it's been 1 step forward and 2 steps backs. Or 2 steps forward and 4 steps back, or 1 forward and 3 back, etc. etc. That's what's maddening about it. They never establish anything conclusively. Every theory remains open, neither proven or disproven, so in reality they're no closer to discovering "the truth" of Oak Island than when they started. If this was the typical scientific or archaeological expedition, and not a TV show that apparently generates lots of revenue for the History Channel, no doubt its financial backers would've pulled the plug long ago. Despite the wide-eyed excitement of the Oak Island crew over every "discovery" (no matter how trivial or ambiguous), there's been nothing found that would warrant continuing to throw money down the drain. (or should I say, "down the Money Pit.") All that said, yes, I'm still watching, but with much less interest than in the past. It's become the kind of show I have on the background, and then realize 20 minutes has gone by and I haven't even paid attention.

Color me surprised. Brother seemed like The Chosen One from the very beginning of LCK, so his immediate boot made all the LCK episodes to date feel pointless. But I'm confused about the format. Is there still more LCK? Is he going to get yet another chance to get back on the show? Has there ever been someone from LCK brought this early in the season? In retrospect, all this talking heads of chefs saying how scared they were of Brother was your typical reality show fake out. News to me. I think a whiskey sour is the first cocktail I ever had, and I've had many since, none of them ever with egg white. (However, egg white is typically used in making a pisco sour, the most popular cocktail in Chile and Peru. Essentially the same drink with pisco instead of whiskey). Personally, I find the whole Prohibition era thing tiresome and cliched. Hopefully the fad is dying out. A couple of "speakeasy" theme bars in my hipstery city recently closed. One of them even used the gimmick of no outside signage or street number and you had to use a "secret knock" on the door to be admitted. I mean, what do you want to do, drink or play kid games?

Maybe this is to set up an exciting expedition by Rick and the team to Home Depot to buy caulk. The way they've been padding out the shows this season, that could be could be good for 15 minutes of air time. Even more if they can find a "researcher" who believes there's a connection between Home Depot and the Knights Templar.

Actually, in the past I can remember Tom being accused of showing favoritism towards female contestants. He brought two women who he really liked back from LCK who then won the title.

Sara seems to be getting a lot of flak about her appearance, unfair in my mind. While no one seems to be giving her credit for her kindness to the servers, which might've been a factor in getting a better outcome than the other teams. As she said, treat people well and they will generally go the extra mile for you. Compare her attitude to that of the blond woman chef who said to the servers, "I don't want to hear you talking to me." Maybe it wasn't her intention, but it came off like she thought the servers were some kind of subhuman species. I agree with others that this is the worst RW in my memory, thanks to seemingly more producer shenanigans than usual and the inexperienced servers, and maybe having the extra team. It also made me wonder about the criteria by which winning and losing teams are selected. The team with Nini as FOH was shown to have done a terrible job in serving their quests in a timely manner. But at Judges Table, that was barely mentioned, and most of the discussion was about how their food fell short. It made me think that a team could do a terrible job running a restaurant, and still win if their food was the best. In which case, focus on your food, make sure the judges get served promptly, and screw all the diners. (I mean, SAG extras).

Brett talking about all the women he's slept with made my stomach churn, but I don't doubt that there are a lot of women out there with incredibly low standards. Maybe just working at a restaurant made him desirable to some. But I was truly offended by his joking about all the illegitimate children he might've fathered. I hate when guys say that as a boast. To me, there is nothing cool or manly about fathering children out of wedlock. Even thought it's likely a hollow boast, it's still in bad taste. I'm on record as maybe being the only (or one of very few) people who likes Trev. This episode made me realize that part of that is feeling naturally sympathetic to the victim of group bullying. Sad that even with Scotley gone, Brett and the others are continuing to pick on Trev. It makes them look small and petty. So as long as the bullying of Trev continues, I will continue to root for him over his attackers. Scotley gone, now Jose. Only Brett remains. It really has been a dismal group of male contestants. All the remaining women are preferable to any of the men.

I used to like this show, despite the frequent piling of one unsubstantiated theory on top of another. But this season, I turn on a new episode and within minutes find my attention wandering. Maybe it's all gone on for too long with too little to show for the effort. Mostly they just find random objects which show that over the centuries a lot of people have come and gone on the island, but nothing that supports a coherent narrative of buried treasure. I'm guessing that the pushing of the Knights Templar/Holy Grail angle is an indication that they never find anything, because they've started saying that it's a "hunt for knowledge" as much as for treasure. But we've seen all this warmed over Da Vinci Code stuff on other History Channel shows, and the wild speculation and cheesy historical recreations are a reminder that "Curse of Oak Island" is produced by the same company that gives us "Ancient Aliens." They even use the same narrator, who always says "What if...." before launching into yet another contrived theory. I also don't get why they're now doing things that they say will offer "conclusive" evidence one way or another. If you had the ability to find out something conclusive, why wouldn't you have done that in the first place? It makes me wonder if the Laginas and their cohorts ever really had a logical plan, or if it's always been an exercise in grasping at straws. (With the sudden emphasis on Zena Halperin's shaky historical research maybe the biggest grasp of all.)

In the season opener Brandon was seemingly being set up as the season's villain, but that was quickly dropped. I'm enjoying the fact that thus far we don't have a villain, or internal squabbling, or cliquishness, which for me really marred some of the earlier seasons. There was the "Eddie Money" thing, but I think Eddie genuinely felt bad about his overspending. You can say he was oblivious, but I don't think he intended to be selfish or hurt his teammates. I agree Sara can be annoying, but I don't think she means to steam roll anyone. It's just kind of her nature, and she's not nearly as aggressive or bossy as some past contestants. But based on the edit of Part One, I have a feeling she may not survive Restaurant Wars. We got the story of her grandfather who paid for her to go to culinary school. Often when they play up the human interest angle it's a sign that someone may not be around long.

I don't remember the inexperience of the waitstaff being an issue before, so I assume that in the past they hired professional servers? This show can certainly afford it, so if they went the route of having amateur servers it's clearly to add another element of drama, which they don't need. The winning and losing teams should be determined by how they perform, without the servers being a wild card. A few years ago the company I worked for took over a restaurant for a charity fund raising evening. It was the restaurant's real chefs and kitchen staff, but all the servers were amateur volunteers, myself included. They gave us about a 20 minute orientation, and then threw us out on the floor. It was challenging to say the least. I felt that it took me most of the night to really get the hang of communicating with the back of the house. Challenging to say the least. And that was without the pressure of being part of a competition. And the diners were all really nice to us, knowing we were amateurs trying to help out.

I fast forward through all the Vegas trip footage. I find most of these reward trip segments boring. At least, as far as I could see, they didn't have the girls in a hotel pool for more superfluous bikini footage, as they did the previous week. Including one lengthy shot from the neck down, where you couldn't tell which contestant it was. I guess they figured they showed what's important. I must be a minority of one here, but I actually like Trev, and enjoy his sense of humor and dead pan delivery. But I'd be shocked if he wins. Very glad to see Scotley go. How could you ever imagine him as head chef when he has zero people skills? Being a manager of any kind means getting along with people you don't particularly like. Ridiculing and mocking them shows a complete lack of maturity. Of course this is Hell's Kitchen, and we know that the drama is encouraged, but I still think you can gauge someone's true personality. (And like others, loved how he had to eat his own smirk).