Domenicholas
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Posts posted by Domenicholas
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On 7/3/2021 at 2:23 PM, Domenicholas said:
Does anyone remember Top Chef Just Desserts, where the first runner up was revealed to be a child predator and that show disappeared off the face of the Earth after two seasons? The Gabe situation reminds me of a less extreme version of that.
I am quoting myself because my original post wasn't really clear.
I was not comparing Gabe to the aforementioned runner up. I believe that preying on children is the worst thing anyone can do, and that guy is the scum of the Earth for doing it. Gabe had a consensual but inappropriate relationship with a subordinate (inappropriate for the same reasons a college shouldn't date their student, a psychiatrist shouldn't sleep with their willing patient, and a sergeant shouldn't cavort with a person under their command: an extreme unbalance of power), but he's nowhere near as bad as the Just Desserts guy.
I was pointing out the Top Chef is once again in the awkward position where they have to deal with broadcasting and potentially rebroadcasting a season where the winner is alleged to have behaved in an inappropriate manner before and after production. It's not like Gabe was the first person to be kicked off where they can skip that episode; he's the winner. In the case of Just Desserts, the crimes of the runner up were so severe that I have no doubt that it was one of the contributing factors to the cancelling of that show. Gabe's alleged actions are nowhere near that level, nor do I believe they will lead to Top Chef's cancellation. It will, however, probably lead to a more thorough vetting process and clauses preventing situations like this from happening again. Now, I liked Gabe from what we've seen in the show, and thought that he deserved to win based on his meal, but am uncomfortable with the allegations against him, some that he himself admits. Ultimately, he probably going to become like Jeremy or Kevin or Nick or Mei Lin and Paul with regards to continued references or future appearances on Top Chef.
Moving on...
Dawn ultimately was her worst enemy. It's a shame too; being an African American woman with three Southern grandparents, I wanted to eat her food the most. If she was that good even when she missed ingredients, how amazing would she had been if she actually completed her plate?
I was rooting for Shouta from the very beginning and sad that uncharacteristic mistakes took him out of the running. I'm glad that the competition brought his spirit back after having to close down his restaurant.
In regards to the season overall, I love the diversity in this season, both in the contestants and the judges. World cuisines that are not normally seen as elevated in the West (Mexican, West African, Japanese, etc...) got a chance to shine. It was poignant to Ed Lee tear up about Asian cuisine being celebrated and validated in a forum like Top Chef. I hope the Top Chef producers keep that in mind when casting for future seasons.
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Does anyone remember Top Chef Just Desserts, where the first runner up was revealed to be a child predator and that show disappeared off the face of the Earth after two seasons? The Gabe situation reminds me of a less extreme version of that.
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If I had to do this challenge, I would be so tongue-in-cheek about it.
Comedy: Nachos and cheese, because it's na-cho cheese! (Rimshot)
Romance: Pretzels, because lovers are always tied together.
Horror: Fried crickets, because bugs scare me.
Action: Kebabs, because they're like little swords!
Sci-Fi: Cheesesticks, because cheese makes up the moon!
Drama: Chocolate balls filled with different ingredients, because you don't know what to expect!
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When Sally said "Water can be so healing," I thought "Yeah, Randall can relate."
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Marc is the male Elise
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Damn. The Queen was more sympathetic to the guy who broke into her house.
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The elimination challenge felt like something from Cutthroat Kitchen:
And now you have to cook
- 2 dishes for 200 people each
- with little sleep
- with crappy, limited options that you’ll have to bargain for and which you won’t know about until you actually have to cook them!
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I don't really mind Eric choosing to always showcase West African cuisine. The culinary world is so Eurocentric that being able to observed the cuisines of different cultures is fascinating. It would be akin to saying that chefs showcasing French cuisine and technique are being repetitive.
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There's so much to impact in this episode.
With regards to the Kevin/Randall fight, although we may subjectively pick which one was the worse in the argument, objectively I believe that the show was showing that they were both in the wrong and that, unfortunately, people say cruel things to the people they love out of anger and insecurity. Kevin is bitter because Randall has the things Kevin craves: their parents' attention and trust, a loving wife, and beautiful children. Randall is bitter because he feels unappreciated for being the dutiful son and watching after the family after Jack's death while Kevin is universally loved after he leaves it to do his own thing a la the prodigal son. They both say things for the sake of maximum damage, which is similar to the Jack/Rebecca fight in Season 1 about her singing, and the Randall/Beth fight about her dance studio/his political career last season. Sadly, fights can get as ugly as that one did in real life.
On slightly happier notes, as soon as Toby talked about having more kids, I knew that Hailey from the art museum was going to be Baby Jack's sister. I expected the baby to be named Rebecca too, but maybe Kevin named his own daughter Rebecca and they didn't want to overlap.
Speaking of Kevin's children, Madison being their mother wasn't a surprise. I liked how she was like "I know this isn't ideal, but these are my miracle babies and I'm having them. Whether you want to be involved is up to you." Sadly, it seems that Randall's words have convinced Kevin to make a deeper commitment to Madison than great father to the twins. I'm on the "Sophie is endgame" train, but what happens to Madison? Do they just break up? Does she die in childbirth? We don't even know if Kevin is married in the "Her" timeline.
I did not catch that Nicky was married in the future. I hope it's not Rebecca; I can't bear to see another husband play second fiddle to the memory of Jack. It could be Cassidy because I don't think that she showed up at his trailer for nothing. She may just be a friend of the family but, as Madison shows, friends either become family or disappear. My crack theory is that Cassidy's son marries Annie in the future.
As for why they focused on the doctor's horse-riding daughter, I came up with a couple of theories:
1. When Madison and Kevin break up, Madison marries her OB/GYN.
2. The daughter Sadie becomes Kevin's wife/girlfriend in the future when she's an adult.
3. Sadie becomes Tess's wife/girlfriend in the future.
4. Sadie becomes a teenage mother and gives birth to Lucy, Baby Jack's wife.
A lot of questions for the next season. We still have not seen Miguel, Annie, Deja, Kate, Back Jack, and now Hailey in the "Her" timeline, and only the latter two in the furthest timeline. Hopefully they will flesh their futures more.
Finally, between Jennifer Morrison, Adelaide Kane, Lucy, and a baby from a large family named Hope, this episode gave me serious Once Upon a Time flashbacks!
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28 minutes ago, BuckeyeLou said:
I am chuckling at a reference to "Passions" 🙂 Kevin says he dated Susan Lucci's daughter(and her daughter, Liza Huber was on "Passions" just like Justin Hartley)
Hah! I thought I would be the only one who remembered that show. I loved Passions.
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53 minutes ago, healthnut said:
Phil Hersh article on proposed changes
I think the change is intriguing, but I don't believe it will really fix the problem. I don't know a lot about skating, but isn't the problem not just the overemphasis on technical elements, but the fact that technically proficient but artistically deficient skaters are getting high PCS in spite of the latter fact? I'm not sure how you would fix that.
What if skaters were just given a base score for each element of their TES without a GOE, and the overall GOE was combined with the PCS, or even one of the components considered for PCS? The judges could still limit the number of jumps a skater does while adding more elements that can boost the TES, like spirals.
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10 hours ago, Jeddah said:
She’s 19 and decided to do a quad. It’s patronizing to act like she must be protected from herself.
There are skaters who don’t do quads who get injured. There are ice dancers who don’t do any jumps that get injured. There is no sport where nobody ever gets injured.
I find comments like this to be gross. Some people are small and lithe. She accomplished something never done before, but people want to talk about how she doesn’t have busts and hips. Focus on what the athlete does, not whether or not they are curvy enough for your liking. I want skaters to be judged by what they do on the ice, not their body types, and that goes both ways.
I didn’t mean any offense, nor was I in anyway criticizing her physique or her great accomplishment. I was just pointing out that the women we see doing quads are smaller and leaner in build, and (as far as I know, I’m not sure) we haven’t seen any taller or stockier women attempting to learn quads. Women’s center of gravity also gets lower the older they get, which may or may not affect their ability to do quads. Who knows...maybe they will start training them anyway. Maybe Trusova and skaters like her will maintain their quads well into their 20s; twenty years ago it would have been unimaginable for men’s skating to be dominated by quads, and yet here we are.
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Isn't Tursynbayeva very small and lithe too? Will bustier and hippier women be able to maintain their quads, or will women's figure skating reach the point of being only for small, lithe teenagers who are put out to pasture at 20 when puberty catches up to them?
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A trope I absolutely despise.
A man and woman, usually with unresolved sexual tension but sometimes brother and sister, have been traveling/spending time together for a while. Suddenly, another man comes along on their travels. The woman is utterly smitten with him, but the man sees him doing some shady stuff. Exact conversation:
Man: That guy is doing some shady stuff.
Woman: You're just jealous.
Other guy: Does shady stuff in front of woman
Woman: O:
You'd think that, after all the time the man and woman has spent together, she would trust him more and not dismiss his concerns immediately.
The only exceptions to this would be if the guy has shown himself to have jealously issues (then he would be the annoying one) or the woman has had a longer relationship with the new guy than the old guy (which is still annoying because the audience doesn't know the new guy even if the woman does).
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I knew the new characters were going to tie into the old ones eventually, but I wished it wouldn't have taking so long to do so.
I guessed that that was Jack Jr. when he was shown in the promos, but I wasn't sure because I thought the future scenes were only fifteen years in the future (unless this is a further future scene). My mom asked why can't one of Jack's large extended family watch his kid; they live off of meddling in each other's lives.
Deja dating Malik has the potential to be cute...or annoying if it ends up in battles between self-righteous Randall and bratty Deja.
I'm excited to see Jennifer Morrison again, but I'm hoping she's Emma!Jennifer and not Cameron!Jennifer. And if she is Kevin's future baby mama I feel sorry for their kid since the Pearsons are already prone to alcoholism only to have an alcoholic mother as well.
Finally, since Malik and Lucy are both established to like cooking, I bet they either start a restaurant together, or Malik owns the diner Lucy works in.
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3 hours ago, Blergh said:
This leads to another TV Trope I get annoyed by, some sitcoms seem SO insecure in their own humor and characters that they can't let ANY deep or touching moments happen without having a clod just get obnoxious no good reason for the supposed delight of the audience!
This is one of the reasons why I'm probably in the minority for not like Thor: Ragnarok. There were a lot of heavy issues in that movie, but because the movie was the start of the Thor series becoming more comedic in nature, jokes and action would interrupt any character trying to actually deal with those heavy issues.
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Speaking of couples, I hate when the usually male half of the couples break up with their significant other because it's too dangerous to be with him/she couldn't handle his life/he's doing it for her benefit. It always comes off as condescending, so I love it when the usually female half tells him that it's her choice/for her to decide what's too dangerous for her, and he has no right to decide that for her.
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Russi Taylor was also married to Wayne Allwine, the voice actor for Mickey, for over 20 years until his death in 2009. Minnie and Mickey are together again.
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10 hours ago, Silver Raven said:
Have you been watching Days of Our Lives? With serial killer Ben, who is now the sexy supercouple love interest?
Not recently, but I do remember when EJ went from Sami's rapist to her husband. I think soap operas in general have a real problem with using rape for shock value, never following through with the consequences of the rape itself (except for the every present who's the daddy storylines), and redeeming rapists and putting them together with their rape victims (especially if it's for a child caused by the rape itself. Gross.).
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I call this the Once Upon of Time Morality trope.
A bad guy can commit thousands of atrocities, but as soon as they do one thing good, the rest of the characters are supposed to treat them like good guys. Anyone who expresses legitimate grievances about one of the bad guys' numerous crimes is silenced immediately.
A good guy can perform millions of good deeds, but as soon as they do one off color thing (e.g. saving people through pragmatic means, rightfully calling out a villain for a crime they committed), they're treated as though they are as bad as the villains. Hell, sometimes they're treated as worse than the villains.
With OUAT Morality, villains can pay lip service to changing without actually changing, and heroes have to be extreme doormats who bear and grin all the crappy things that happen to them.
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Since I'm pretty sure that Kevin's son was played by young Kevin, I wondered if the show could use the other young actors that way. Maybe Annie strays as a teenager, and in the future she has a son played by young Randall. Maybe Kevin has an older daughter that looks like teen Kate, and baby Jack looks like teen Kevin when he grows up (which would make jokes about Kevin/Kate's closeness even more awkward).
I thought of Madison as the mother too, though they will have show how it went from "She's crazy" to "Why are you here?" to mother of his child. I'm hoping that they bring back his girlfriend from season 1 (Lane? The At&T girl). At the moment, however, please no Sophie. They already broke up twice now, and he's already responsible for her ending one relationship before.
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There was also the situation in Days where EJ rapes Sami before he would help her save Lucas and then became her love interest soon after.
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One of my biggest pet peeves when it comes to abortion is when a woman who decides to have one is either demonized or brutalized by the writers because of it. When Mimi Lockhart from Days of our Lives, for example, had an abortion, she subsequently lost her boyfriend, married someone who settled for her because his ex married someone else, was rendered infertile by the abortion, lost her chance to have a baby by said husband when his sperm was switched (conveniently fertilizing the egg of his ex), and ultimately abandoned by her husband for his ex. Now, I understand the topic of abortion is highly polarizing, but women who have them are not evil and shouldn't be treated as such.
On a slightly related trope, I hate the convenient miscarriage trope, where a woman's pregnancy is used as a plot device and goes away as soon as the plot ends, never to be mentioned again. Unless the woman is established not to have wanted or cared about the baby in the first place, it's jarring to see TV women easily get over an event that takes many women years, if not decades, to move on from. One of the most frustrating ones I remember is Blair's pregnancy from Gossip Girl; you knew it was going to end that way as soon as it happened, and she may have given one ugh when it happened before moving on to something else (although I will concede that Blair probably didn't want the baby in the first place).
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I am really tired of slap-slap kiss relationships, where two people bicker before they figure out they like each other. There's nothing bad about those relationships, but media tends to make every relationship like that, regardless of whether or not it fits the personality of the characters. It makes romance boring when as soon as you see two arguing, you're like "they're going to be together." God forbid you have two characters get together by, gasp, being kind to each other and open about their affections. Monroe and Rosalee from Grimm, for example, had a compelling romance without it starting as slap-slap kiss.
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S12.E01: Cake Week
in The Great British Bake Off
I really like Freya's eyes. It looks like one's blue and the other is green with a reddish brown dot.
When Lizzie said that she was from Liverpool, I thought of Yellow Submarine: "I'm a natural-born lever-puller!"
Giuseppe reminds me why I love engineers on this show. They're always so precise with their collection of mathematical instruments. So far, I like him, Jurgen, Freya, Crystelle, Maggie, and even George, although he struggled this weak.