On Television

Last night I tuned into American Idol for the first time this season, and I was reasonably surprised by how much better it seems this year. The REAL MUSICAL instruments impressed me as well. But really, who can take anyone named Constantine seriously?

I have to admit, I'm not a fan of Amazing Race. My wife is, though, so while she watches, I browse the blogs or play a game of Civilization III or something. Tonight, I'm typing along on the PC, and The She Ogre is watching AR. The thing is, they're in Turkey tonight, and she keeps yelling, "I've BEEN THERE!"

Did you guys catch the amazing race? Phew! Rob and amber were so close to coming in last. Now that ron and kelly are without money, the cracks in their relationship will surely destroy them in the next leg of the race. That means that rob and amber will probably win it. Oh come on, the oldies are taking their own sweet time around the globe while uchenna and joyce aren’t sharp enough to beat rob and amber. But who knows, stranger things have happened…

Speaking of juicy things, my wildest dreams are coming true! Tomorrow, the Oprah Winfrey Show will be featuring the lusty Bollywood star…that’s right! Aishwarya Rai will come to rock American television airwaves again. I have an exclusive engagement with Oprah, so if any of you see any cute boys for me, tell them to get in the queue. I have a date with Oprah and Ash.

That was one of the great lines of the evening on Desperate Housewives as the story arc regarding Andrew's coming out unfolds. I'm really liking where this is going and it was a wonderful episode to showcase Marcia Cross's and Shawn Pyfrom's acting and the development of their characters. As Cross mentioned in a recent USA Today article, Bree is coming from a place of love, no matter how misguided it might be. Bree is not full of one-dimensional one liners like "and the word is not gay, it's sodomy." She really believes that Andrew will not go to heaven and that she cannot bare it if he wasn't there with her. Cross says the lines with such conviction that it's almost beautiful, even though, in real life, I would hate that message and hate Bree for saying it.

As the runner-up to Fox TV's second American Idol: The Search for a Superstar competition, vocalist Clay Aiken wowed television audiences in 2003 with his Southern charm, sweet demeanor, and bright, glorious voice, and became a pop star. Originally, Clay Aiken planned to try out for the reality TV series The American Race, but went ahead and auditioned for the talent contest to please an encouraging friend. Out of 7,000 hopefuls, the Charlotte, NC, native won the hearts of the judges as well as millions of fans across the globe.

This week's leg of The Amazing Race took place entirely in and around the Okavango Delta, an area of marshes without outlet, surrounded by desert. As the racers saw along the roads, that causes a rare density of large animals, especially in the dry season, and the area is the main tourist destination in Botswana. Maun is a small town, but it has ultra-luxury guest "lodges" nearby and international flights...

Ok, this I have to admit; reality TV is addictive. Possibly, it also dumbs down your senses. I know because I was watching The Apprentice while tremors were felt all over Malaysia from the quake in Sumatra the other night. And frankly, if it wasn't for the informative write up that were available in the newspapers the following day, I would have been as clueless as an American who asks "Isn't tsunami over already?"

The show actually inspires people to further embed themselves in the rat race and do what it takes to climb up the pyramid. At least, I was. I mean, what's the other option? Become a hippie or a bohemian artist? [Btw, please watch the Southpark episode on hippies. Being someone from the Arts stream, I felt deeply confronted, ahem]. In other words, The Apprentice is a kick ass capitalist campaign that has deep and far reaching capacities.

I'm generally not a fan of teenage dramas, but having caught up with all the episodes of "Lost", "24" and "CSI", and feeling badly in need of some distraction that didn't require either thought or coming home reeking of cigarettes, I decided to give "Smallville" a try; the way I saw it, at the very least it would be interesting to see if something worthwhile could be done with a superhero who's always had the curious problem of being so powerful and level-headed that there's just never been that much to do...

Fox still won’t confirm anything, but those whispers that Kimberly Stewart will replace Nicole Richie on the next season of “The Simple Life” have turned into roars.

Even though Rupert and his family won't be appearing on Amazing Race 8, his family is playing an active part in his life. Rupert tells us, "My Mom is in charge of fan mail and charity requests, my brother has traveled with me to several appearances as my handler/road manager, and my sister-in-law is my Agent and Manager, handling personal appearances, television and movie deals, and other advertising/product endorsement contracts."

George Armelagos, an anthropologist at Emory University, calls this shift the King Henry VIII and Oprah Winfrey Effect. In Tudor England, it took hundreds of gardeners, farmers, hunters and butchers to keep Henry VIII fat. In America today, anyone can bulk up without help, but it takes a new set of vassals - personal trainer, nutritionist, private chef - to keep Oprah from looking like Henry VIII.

Update: Here's a collection of interesting Google Map satellite photos, including Bill Gates' house and lawn mower art of Oprah Winfrey's face. Perljam.net has done the link legwork so you don't have to. I'll have to take their word about Gates' house, however; I couldn't figure out which one it is.

At the urging of Leann (and with a little nudging from my friend Kristin) I finally tuned in about 3 weeks ago and I immediately got a sense of why the network is promoting the show so heavily - because it's good. And I don't just mean "good" as in it's entertaining for an hour, I mean it's really good. It's better than 90% of the shows on network television, American Idol included. So why hasn't it been picked up by struggling ABC or NBC? Don't the TV execs know that country music is a bigger demographic than Pop or Rock? Apparently...

The finalists on the fourth season of "American Idol" will release "When You Tell Me That You Love Me" as a 19 Recordings/RCA Records single on April 19. RCA and 19 Entertainment will donate to the American Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund $.50 for every CD sold and $.21 for every digital download sold.

The viewers of Fox-TV's massively popular "American Idol" series decided which song would be released as a charity single by voting online for their favorite among three choices. So many viewers cast votes that all three songs will be included on the single.

The lead track, "When You Tell Me That You Love Me," was a No. 2 hit for Diana Ross in the United Kingdom in 1991. The song is the biggest Diana Ross hit in the last 18 years. Written by John Bettis and Albert Hammond, the song was also recorded as a duet between Julio Iglesias and Dolly Parton. The version by the "American Idol" finalists was produced by Desmond Child and includes vocals by the top 12 contestants: Bo Bice, Lindsey Cardinale, Anthony Fedorov, Mikalah Gordon, Constantine Maroulis, Anwar Robinson, Scott Savol, Jessica Sierra, Vonzell...

The 10 most popular pirated TV downloads worldwide are: “24,” “Stargate Atlantis,” “The Simpsons,” “Enterprise,” “Stargate SG-1,” “The O.C.,” “Smallville,” “Desperate Housewives,” “Battlestar Galactica,” and “Lost,” according to a February survey by Envisional, cited in the report. Much of the downloading occurs overseas, especially in the English-language United Kingdom, where shows aren’t usually broadcast until months after they’ve aired in the United States.

So it's all come down to Tana and Craig (street smarts) versus Kendra and Alex (book smarts). I'm guessing that Alex will be the next to go. The only reason he didn't get the boot last night is that he argued more skillfully than Bren. The Donald seemed particularly impressed by the fact that Alex had studied in Israel. I felt kind of bad for Bren. But it seemed like he had enough of the Apprentice. He said as much in the cab ride confession.

Craig? Fail? I beg to differ.

Paris Hilton has ditched Nicole Richie from the fourth series of their Simple Life TV show - after a joke went wrong. The blonde heiress had invited friends round to watch a video of her Saturday Night Live performance - but prankster Nicole reportedly put on Paris' infamous sex tape instead. After a massive row, the former best friends are said to be completely ignoring each other.

And just like that, Anwar is eliminated. Harsh! I'm glad Federov is sticking around, but I can't say I'm looking forward to seeing Scott again next week. Blech. Scott and Gretchen from the Amazing Race are like reality TV cockroaches.

Rob and Amber (sorry, Ambuh) from Survivor and The Amazing Race got married on Saturday. Weren’t invited? Don’t worry, CBS was there. They have their own TV special in May. Can they please go away now?

This generation is the time to make extreme poverty a distant memory. If Pat Robertson and Ellen DeGeneres can work together behind this, I think we all can, and until we've beaten back extreme poverty, I think other things we might otherwise want to scrap about can wait.

Since we're still waiting for new Gilmore Girls episodes, and we haven't gotten into this season of The Amazing Race, there hasn't been much television to watch. Then, a few weeks ago, we were home on a Saturday night and turned on the TV. ABC was showing back-to-back reruns of Desperate Housewives. We watched it, and thought the show was pretty decent. Not great, but decent. Then we watched it the next night. And the following week. And the following. And now we're hooked.

After Tuesday's `70s disco-themed "American Idol," Anwar Robinson failed to stay alive on Wednesday night's show.

Despite being earlier hailed by judge Paula Abdul as technically this season's best singer, the dreadlocked Robinson received the fewest votes and was sent home, narrowing the field of contestants to just six.

In his performance Tuesday, Robinson sang Earth, Wind and Fire's "September." Judge Simon Cowell's assessment proved prophetic.

"I don't think it was a winning performance," Cowell said.

Apparently Boston Legal has been renewed for a second season... but the catch is that the remaining 5 episodes for this season will not be aired until the fall... the final episodes will jump start into the second season, which means a total of 27 new episodes next season. I'm glad that Boston Legal was renewed but this seems like a stupid plan that will simply annoy and alienate the fans.

Just got back from TARCon West! It was so much fun watching The Amazing Race with a bar full of people who are as crazy about the show as I am. Everyone was very friendly – a bunch of people I didn’t know asked me to sit with them right away and everyone talked and mingled all night liked old friends.The buttons I had made up were a big hit too. I brought my camera but ended up not taking too many pictures. I thought I’d taken more of the TWoPers (That’s short for “people who post on the Television Without Pity web site") but not only did I take less than I thought but it seems like the only ones that really came out were of the racers. That’s right – we got to watch the Amazing Race finale with people who’d actually been on the race!

Watching American Idol is enjoyable again, now that we have DVR. It's amazing how a boring-ass hour-long show becomes a 23-min. performance marathon. Just press FFWD when you see Ryan Seacrest open his mouth, and press PLAY as soon as the performer sets foot on the stage.

To date, Oprah's Angel Network and its support foundation have raised over $17 million: five million dollars from viewers responding to The Oprah Winfrey Show: ChristmasKindness South Africa; 5.1 million dollars from viewer donations; and an additional seven million dollars from celebrity contributions and sponsors such as Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com and Paul Newman of Newman's...

"One Tree Hill" sweethearts Chad Michael Murray and Sophia Bush are officially man and wife.

Our tv time…. We LOVE Extreme Makeover Home Edition. Everything stops when that show comes on. Love love love love love crawling onto the couch with a blanket and cuddling together while watching the show. and we ALWAYS wind up tearing up at the end! And then we laugh at each other for being such saps. It’s great!

Okay, so I haven't had any quality posts in a while and am sitting down right now to surf the web and post my thoughts. Before I begin, I just got done watching Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. This is the 2nd week in a row I have watched this show. It is one of mrs. sports pundit's favorite, and I must say, both times I've watched it, I've cried like a 16 year old girl who got stood up on prom night. Seriously, if you don't tear up watching this show, you have no heart.

When the voting was over, the next Idol whose future was ended on the media franchise of American Idol was Nadia Turner. She had given a stunning performance the first week in the top twelve arrangement but never matched it in subsequent performances. However, I honestly think that Scott Savol should have gone before her, regardless of my opinions of his character. Have a good career Nadia; and get off the show, Scott.

If the makers of The Apprentice had brought in a fat goat in a top hat and a monocle to fire people, the show would still be the best thing on TV. In fact, it'd be the best thing ever in the universe.

She already is working on a Martha version of The Apprentice and a syndicated how-to show, although she’s still under house arrest. She has returned to her magazine’s cover and is writing a new column.

Even before recently watching my first episode of ABC's ''Desperate Housewives," I already knew two things about the Sunday night series. It's this television season's biggest new hit, and its stars hate one another.

“Anna’s journey to discover herself is something many viewers are dealing with on some level, and ‘One Tree Hill’ has done a fantastic job of telling this multi-layered story,” said GLAAD Entertainment Media Director Damon Romine.

If there’s one thing “The Biggest Loser” finalist Kelly Minner avoids, it’s the scale.

“I don’t want to be slave to that scale again,” said Minner, a Pennsylvania teacher who will appear at the Weekend of Wellness in Newberry starting today.

Minner lost 79 pounds and placed third in the NBC reality series, where 12 contestants vied to see who would lose the most weight.

But simply losing weight isn’t what Minner wants. She knows better — scales can vary, as can a person’s water and muscle weight.

What’s most important to her is how she feels.

Christopher Reeve's Superman co-star Margot Kidder has blasted producers of the movie's TV spin-off Smallville, for its insensitive treatment of Reeve's death.

I watched Amazing Race last night. I was so disappointed at the end when we got the "to be continued...". I'm sure Amber and Rob were disappointed too since they both looked exhausted. I thought it wasn't smart of Kelly/Ron to not yield Rob/Amber. They are the strongest team. Take them out when you have the opportunity!

I thought it was really cute how Meredith/Gretchen were like stars to the local people. Very sweet. I was also happy to see that the women didn't seem to have a problem in India like in the previous Amazing Races. The detour task looked nearly impossible. I'm surprised all 5 of the teams chose to do it. I wonder how long it actually took to complete that task. Anyway, I'll be tuning in next week to find out who comes in last. It's really going to stink if it is Meredith/Gretchen and it is a non elimination...

One Tree Hill star Sophia Bush has leapt to the defence of pregnant popstar Britney Spears, insisting people shouldn't judge her for starting a family so soon … more

I've seen more than a few episodes of "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition". They select a particularly needy family, usually facing some sort of hardship with a disabled child or something equally devastating, and they either remodel or completely rebuild their home to accommodate whatever problems the family faces. It's a feel good show, and while I'm sure the networks make a profit, it is nice to witness such charity.

Your house can receive an ‘extreme makeover’, but then you won’t be able to keep it.

The ladies of th Sunol, California, homeowners' association would like to express their concern over the lack of cable television access in the Sunol Regional Wilderness park. The ladies would very much like to catch up on past episodes of CSI and Desperate Housewives. They also have some shopping to do on HSN. The ladies hereby warn the public that if they do not get what they want, they may spend even more time sleeping that would be considered prudent. Thank you for your attention.

Without a doubt, I would hire Kendra as the apprentice. Her ability to strategize and execute is second to none. While Stephanie was the project manager during the golf task, her (Kendra's)idea to market to surrounding vendors in the area was instrumental to Magna winning. In fact, whether she has been project manager or not she has been instrumental in many of Magna's wins. When Magna was faltered on the Burger King task she could have jump on the bandwagon and gone with everyone and said Danny deserved to be fired. But she didn't, she went ahead...

I work at a Pontiac dealership and the brochure that Kendra put together is outstanding. If Kendra does not get to bet the Apprentice, GM should hire her to do all of their promotional pieces.

So who would conquer the interviews? Kendra besides for having a real estate business, was on a weekly talk radio show. She's excellent at marketing and is methodical and intelligent in her approach. She is mature (there is a deleted scene that is on the Apprentice website this week where she approached Craig to try and work their challenges out).

Every time she leads in a task, it almost seems like that team is guaranteed a win. She just crushes the competition. Time and time again as a team player she has crafted ways for her team to win. When she is the project manager she drives them home to victory. As a team player and project manager her ideas seem to never be challenged because she articulates the information to her teammates in such a manner that they have no other alternative but to implement the idea (most times they cannot think of a better idea). Its a no brainer Kendra is...

In addition to Rancic's existing responsibilities overseeing the construction of Trump Tower in Chicago, his expanded duties will include strategic development of other Trump properties across the country and in Mexico. Trump also confirmed that Rancic would return to the boardroom during season four of "The Apprentice," filling in for George Ross and Carolyn Kepcher when they are on business trips.

CBS has officially announced information on the finales for the current seasons of The Amazing Race and Survivor. The Amazing Race 7 finale will air as a special two-hour episode on Tuesday, May 10 at 9:00-11:00 PM, ET/PT. The finale will feature the final three teams racing to the finish line. Phil Keoghan will host.

Survivor: Palau will air a special two-hour finale on Sunday, May 15 at 8:00-10:00 PM, ET/PT. Immediately following the finale will be a one-hour reunion show that will air live from the Ed Sullivan Theater in New York from 10:00-11:00 PM, ET/PT. The reunion show will reunite the 20 castaways for the first time since their stay on Palau. Jeff Probst will host both the finale and reunion show.

Posted by Joe Reality on April 16, 2005 at 01:19 PM in Reality TV | Permalink

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You may want to reconsider before wanting to be a receipent of such good fortune on shows like “Survivor,” “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition,” “Renovate My Family” and any other show where you win cash and prizes. It’s struck many winners this past year that it can...

Instead I try to define myself from what I think of life. Because I do a lot of thinking, probably too much, which is because I’m alone most of the time andgot noone else to talk to but myself (myself agrees a lot)… Anyway, this hasn’t really been an issue until now… or rather, I havent seen it as one. Today I found myself watching 4 episodes of what is my favourite series at the moment (Scrubs), when I understood what was going on.

I haven't commented on American Idol lately because I'm so bored with it. I literally fast forward through the whole thing (GLORIOUS TIVO) because I hate everyone so much. I think Carrie will probably win. Why Scott Savol is still there is beyond me. Someone needs to tap him on the shoulder too and tell him he's white. A big fat white guy. "I'm just trying to keep it real" Um, really? Aren't you from like Ohio?