Summer Rant – Bad Choices

Things are humming along with this summer’s TV specials and series and although Torchwood - Children of Earth will be broadcast this week in North America, I followed the series night by night as it was broadcast in the UK a couple of weeks ago and started off hopeful and intrigued and ended up disappointed and pissed off. I know that the Brits are not known for the Disney formula “Happily ever after”, but the death of Ianto and the departure of Jack for space left a bad taste in my mouth that was flavoured with homophobia and failure. If the BBC didn’t want Torchwood around they would have been better to not produce any more instead of this tripe that completely deconstructed everything and just seemed wrong. I don’t think we will be seeing much more of Torchwood and it’s a shame as it was well written and had some fascinating characters. Another brilliant show that died a terrible death before it’s time.

So you think you can Dance? has already gone to Top Ten and now to the Final 8. Wade Robson is a mad genius and I was in awe at his incredible number that he put together for our Ten. Although I was disappointed that Kupono was nuked this week (but have to agree that he failed miserably at the Paso Doble) and it seems that America is not ready for a kind of androgynous dancer. I don’t see why they can’t have an openly gay competitor (it’s dance, not that it’s new to have a gay man doing it) and maybe soon they will be ready for it. It’s was a shame that Randi was eliminated, but one of the girls had to go and she wasn’t bringing anything different than what the other girls can bring, and she did the same cardinal sin from last year that if you wear a wig and the voting public can’t recognize you, you will be eliminated. I will say that I was pretty shocked that Ade and Melissa were near the bottom of the pack, they both seem to be incredible dancers and look great on camera. I have the feeling that Evan will be packing his bags soon, and even though Jason picked it up this week and did a great number, I am not feeling the love and am getting tired of him mugging for the camera and playing cute. The combination of Mary Murphy and Debbie Allan on the Judging panel is something damn fierce, and Mary’s comment that she is not allowed to touch the contestants must stem from that famous Paula Abdul affair with American Idol. Still, the Cougar level was on High Alert with the boys doing their African number and combined with the Bollywood number with all the girls, brought even more World Dance to the stage. The show is really exposing the public to all genres of dance and that is a very good thing. If we could just do something about Cat’s hit and miss stylist this show would be pretty close to perfection.

The Next Food Network Star just made a major boo boo with the past couple of episodes. Our plucky nutritionist was bumped even thought Jamika failed completely at both of the challenges. I don’t agree that one was kept just because she has a certain resemblance to a certain wife of an President…. I really thought the Judges would have been above that but it appears not. Poor Michael might be great with a crowd but can’t connect to the camera and was destined to be bumped.I still think Debbie is going to win, and has the biggest potential out of the remaining competitors.

The Fashion Show is winding up and the finale was a decent show. I was happy to see Reco bumped after that debacle with the Wedding dress, and it was either him or James-Paul that was destined to be bumped at the end. James-Paul is just too way out there, and I didn’t even get his concept of Aboriginal people wearing western clothing as most tribal clothing is more intricate than his geometric shapes. I liked the multi-purpose idea of his collection, but any piece of clothing that comes with an instruction manual sounds like too much work for me. Daniella’s collection was interesting but too masculine for my taste.I really loved the entire collection put together by Anna and think that she should take home the big prize, she had the most wearable and interesting collection and I really did see her underlying theme flow through the collection.

I have loved the first new episodes of Eureka and it’s nice to see all the gang together and Carter continuing to be the glue that holds all the chaos together. This show and Burn Notice are 2 great examples of well developed concepts and well written shows that stick to the essential elements that make them a success. Of course it doesn’t hurt that both shows have sexy leading men that know how to take charge, have some kick ass women that back them up and some surprises every week. I was in hysterics when Michael’s mom decided to help out with the interrogation and has started to help out in a more tangible way.The chemisty between the characters is as great as ever.

The Superstars is turning into one of my biggest Guilty Pleasures and I keep tuning in to see more of Maksim Chmerkovskiy from Dancing with the Stars compete like a madman and look damn fine doing it. The rest of the teams seem to be on revolving doors with contestants coming and going, and I was applauding our bitchy supermodel Joanna as she had her meltdown when her partner Tyrell quit the competition to go to training camp. The games are fun and quite varied and it will be interesting to see how all of this plays out. It’s fun and light summer fare.

Wrapping things up, I survived a Japanese Game Show is as hilarious and even more fun than last year with all the wacky games and challenges. The whole concept is so foreign in many ways, and the look inside of the Japanese psyche is quite the show. The claws are coming out and the way the teams are dividing and fighting against each other is adding more steam to a high pressure situation and things are getting very hot. In this week’s Elimination round, love birds Jamie and Drew pitted against each other. When I saw the challenge involved deep-throating squid to dismember them, I was pretty sure that Jamie had it in the bag and true to form our girl performed like a champion and won.Unfortunately it meant the end of Drew who was the cutest competitor, but such is the competition. The walk of shame at the end of each episode is always so poignant and ironic as our contestant walk off into the sunset in their final Majide costume. Very funny stuff – in a mean kind of a way.