Three-fer

Last night marked the real return of So You Think You Can Dance! Hooray! But then the stupid local news decided that the weather was newsworthy enough to preempt the first hour of the show. Boooo! I managed to catch most of the second half live, but then I had to dig around a bit today to find last night's episode online, so forgive the delay.

Anyways, it was your pretty standard first show with the top 20. Most of the dances were good, but not great, and the judges were pretty positive across the board (although they were pretty hard on Tony and Paris, neither of whom I thought deserved to make it to the top 20 anyways, so meh). I almost think it's like even though they clearly have their favorites, they don't want to tip the scales too much...yet. I sometimes wonder if Mary Murphy sits up at night and comes up with new and annoying ways to come up with "fake-out" praise. Like, "hmmm, how can I pretend to hate something and then turn around and reveal that I totally love it?" Ugh. And I also cannot STAND Adam Shankman. Besides the fact that he's a smarmy little sycophant, the amount of self-promotion he does for projects that he maybe shouldn't be so proud of...it's just disgusting.

And while I'm at it, can I also bitch a little bit about how disappointed I am that they seem to have watered down the genres so much the last couple seasons? I really like Tabitha and Napoleon, but most of what they choreograph really just does not scream "hip-hop" to me, especially that lite-rock shit. And even the ballroom/latin stuff has so many silly storylines and so much mugging that it's often unrecognizable. One of the things I always loved in the first few seasons was that they held people to these strict standards of fox trot, cha-cha, etc.

Anyways. Tony & Paris got sent home. Whatevs. I was certain from the start that Tony wouldn't make it past the first episode. And Paris always rubbed me the wrong way. Something about the beauty queen thing, I guess. I think so far, I'm rooting for Asuka, Jason and of course, Phillip.

Part 2 - Top Chef Masters! I've been crazy excited about this ever since I started seeing commercials a couple months ago. I absolutely LOVE the idea of getting top notch chefs in a competition together, although I'm a little bummed that it's more of a bracket-style setup rather than 20 crazy egos in one room. Last night's episode did not dissapoint, although I think it was almost a given that Hubert Keller would win. He was so clearly head and shoulders above the other guys.

I should also mention that I've looked at the bio page for the contestants on Bravo's website and it's a pretty interesting mix of people. There are a bunch of chefs who are pretty famous and/or have been guest judges on TC in the past, and then there are a bunch who seem a little bit like filler. I have to wonder how they cast the show and how they determined who was going to compete against whom in the first round. I mean, was there ever a chance we would have seen Keller, Bayless, and Dufresne on the same show? I doubt it. I also think it's interesting how there's a certain amount of cannibalization between Top Chef and Iron Chef America. It make sense from a certain standpoint since there are only so many top quality chefs who are also camera-ready. I wonder how execs at Bravo & Food Network feel about it though.

I'm impressed that they managed to get Gael Greene as a judge, although I'm not particularly a fan of the other two guys. The Saveur editor has a nice pedigree on paper, but on screen he's just annoying. And the other guy seems to want to be the next Toby, but isn't quite there either.

I do miss Tom Collichio though and I'm hoping he makes an appearance at some point. And the jury is still out on Kelly Choi. She's definitely more animated than Padma, who always seems like she's on a nice mellow Valium trip, but she occasionally makes this weird face that sorta bugs me - almost like she's smelled something foul. And couldn't they find someone who's NOT a stick-thin formal model?! I know, nitpicking. But I'm definitely looking forward to next week's episode, with Wylie Dufresne. Should be interesting.

Last, but not least, to complete this reality TV 3-fer, we have The Fashion Show. Yes, I'm still watching this train wreck. Like I've said before, it's all I've got until Project Runway comes back in August. I will say though, they do a great job with their challenges. I think they've all been very interesting and well, challenging, but without going into crazytown, like with the PR where they had to make clothes out of garbage.

In any case, I was sad that Angel got the boot tonight. She was one of the few people I actually sorta liked on the show, even though her clothes were kind of a disaster. But everyone else on that show is just such a catty, egotistical bitch that it's almost unbearable. I used to sort of like Reco, but his ego is way way out of control. As is Daniela's, who I despise with the burning fire of a thousand suns. There's something about know-it-all 23-year-olds that just totally chaps my ass.

I'm also beyond annoyed that Johnny is still there since not only is he phoning it in (and doing it poorly), but his whole "I can't sew" deal is getting way way WAY old. I was happy that Merlin won tonight though. He seemed like he was losing a little bit of his strut (as evidenced by the lack of jaunty hats of late) and I think it was a good confidence boost. I'm sure it'll totally go to his head and be totally annoying next week.

Oh and one last gripe: can I just say how freaking FURIOUS I was last week when everyone was bitching and moaning over having to work with "real" women? It's shit like that that makes me want to burn down department stores and join a nudist colony so I can hang out with old fat hippies. Ok, just had to get that out of my system.