I Survived a Japanese Game Show - Let's Ride!

The game this week is for two team members to ride bicycles that control the speed of a treadmill upon which another team member will be riding a tricycle. Not an adult tricycle but one built for a child. Which ever tricycle rider lasts the longest in the "red zone" wins, fail and end up in a pool of ice water.

Cathy is up on the tricycle for the yellow team and lasts a whole 5 seconds in the red zone while Bilenda managed a respectable 38 seconds before taking the plunge. That looked so uncomfortable riding the tricycles with knees sticking out all over and I know that seat had to hurt! Round two and Meaghan gets 28 seconds for the green team while yellow Darcy only gets 13 seconds. The yellow penguins win the game, or as host Rome says "pengins".

The winners get a VIP tour of the world's largest fish market where 4 million pounds of fish is sold daily. That's incredible! At that rate we won't have any fish left in a few years! They go to the tuna auction and get to sample the wares. The fisherman sliced the tuna right off the carcass, now that's fresh!

The losing team has to go to the rice paddies and plant rice all day. When they get their outfits, apparently there is a dress code in the rice paddies, Donnell says he looks like Bruce Lee's illegitimate half son. The rice paddies looked so pretty, from a distance. Right away everyone gets stuck in the mud. There was a Japanese man standing on the bank blowing a whistle at the team, for what, I don't know. I guess he was there to whistle at them if they weren't doing it right. He was blowing the whistle so much that Donnell asked if he was an NFL referee. This guy was certainly looking for the free labor, when Donnell feel down, the whistle blower tells him, get up, plant rice! Those Japanese don't mess around. It didn't look like they got much planted and what they did plant, they got yelled at for not getting the plants in a straight line.

For the elimination game, Mary says to put up Darcy & Donnell and Meaghan agrees. Later, Meaghan offers to go up against Darcy as long as she gets exemption in the next elimination. Good thinking Meaghan! Everyone agrees to her terms and the elimination is set. At the studio, Donnell decides he doesn't like the deal they made with Meaghan and earns her wrath. Look bud, you agreed to the deal don't be going back on it now.

The elimination game is "You look funny stuck on the wall". Yes, they jump onto a wall wearing velcro jump suits and try to land inside the form of a person. Meaghan hits hers perfectly while Darcy is close but no mocchi ball. After the jumps, the others, watching in the back, are wondering how they are going to get down. The girls have to be peeled off the wall. Meaghan continues to nail her forms and is declared the winner. They peel her off the wall and leave poor Darcy hanging on the wall. Finally host Rome looks up, like they all forgot about Darcy and has her peeled off and carried away by the Japanese Secret Service. Sayonara Darcy! Until next week....Majide!!!!!! Double D

Hell's Kitchen- The Winner Is.............

The last episode left us with a cliffhanger, not who would win Hell's Kitchen, but who would pick Jen and who would pick Matt, now that's a cliffhanger! Being the astute observer, I did notice that Jen was on Petrozza's and Matt was on Christina's team and I was right. Those two proved to be the wild cards of the episode and managed to steal air time from the others. I don't think Ben, Louross and Corey even uttered a single word on this last episode. Christina has to butter up Matt so that he'll be willingly to work, so she tells him that her inspiration for the risotto was due to him (as she tells the camera, not!). You could see him swell with pride, well, ok he popped with pride. He reminds of me Pumba from the Lion King, just give him some horns! Chef taste each one's menu and tells Christina to sex up her dishes, humm, he doesn't tell Petrozza that? Chef says that Christina's dishes are just plain Jane but could be great (maybe they need a little Victoria Secret). Petrozza's on the other hand has difficult dishes but could be fantastic if he can pull it off. I would love to try that souffle of his for dessert, yum! I like the decor in Christina's dining room, understated and elegant while Petrozza's reminded me of your grammy's dining room. During dinner service, it's the usual drama from Matt who keeps muttering under his breath, shut up! After the show, I'm sure he's headed back to the insane asylum, he's nuts! Jen started out and ended up one bitter person. She's just got the nastiest attitude and shocked Chef when she had the balls to ask him for a letter of recommendation. I think the only thing Chef can recommend is that Jen has a terrible sour atta- turd. Ya, you heard me, sour atta-turd! In the end, Hell's Kitchen didn't disappoint with all the drama and suspense when it came to the unveiling or in this case the opening of the door to reveal the winner of this season's Hell Kitchen.................Christina! She so deserved it and I'm sure Chef is thinking young enough to be molded by the great one!-Single D

The Next Food Network Star-Rachel Ray

Five down, five to go. This time it's a full on demo on how to whip something up in four minutes, this time before a live audience and with the help of an assistant, a brownie and not the chewy fudgy kind. I mean the little girl scout kind. Finally Kelsey has someone her size to help her. Each contestant is asked to cook something to appeal to the taste of their little brownie. Lisa is trying to convince her brownie that she likes horseradish cream sauce and flat iron steak. Poor kid, no wonder she had such a perplexed look on her face, what's horseradish? Lisa says you don't have to dummy down the food. I guess she's never been a mother. Yes you do have to dummy down the food or they won't eat it. Shane's girl doesn't like to eat anything and about the only thing she does likes is ham so Shane decides to make chicken cordon blue coated with puffy rice cereal, good choice. Aaron decides on meatball and broccoli pizza, good kid food, while Kelsey does a breakfast meatball sandwich with yogurt fruits and Adam decides on BBQ chicken pita. First up was Aaron on the Rachel Ray live audience show. The first thing Aaron says to his kid is that they need to wash their hands and turns his back to the cameras and audience, wrong! He immediately knew that was the wrong thing to do and quickly tried to recover by engaging his over zealous brownie to roll out the pizza dough. In the end he did pretty well and what kid doesn't like pizza? Kelsey makes the huge mistake of asking Rachel Ray to cook the only thing that needed cooking, the eggs, while Kelsey gave directions like she was the one hosting the show, hello whose show is it? You could tell Rachel was not happy cooking Kelsey's recipe. Shane was robotic like in his dealings with his brownie. You could so tell he's not into kids. Adam really did a great job hosting and handling the cooking with his kid showing high energy and making smooth transitions winning the judges over and their votes as the best hosting audition. I think the worst one was Lisa as she totally blanked out two minutes into it. Her mouth stopped working and Rachel had to carry on the show, you could almost hear the crickets in the audience and she had the look of Pinocchio caught in the headlights. Poor Lisa, you just wanted to scream snap out of it! The judges narrowed the field of elimination down to Shane, Kelsey and Lisa. Shane for his lack of personality, Kelsey for her too much personality and Lisa for her blank personality. I so totally think that Shane has no life experience to contribute at his tender age of what 21? Same with Kelsey except that her personality saves her life every time. You can tell Lisa has the most culinary experience out of everyone of the group, now if she can just pull it together in front of the cameras she would be great and someone I would watch for the recipes. My vote to go this week was Shane and I think the judges heard me as they send Shane back home for some more life real experiences and a little more culinary practice .-Single D

The Bachelorette Finale

As they say, all good things must come to an end and so it is with the Bachelorette. Who knew that crazy looking Jesse, with his pink shoe laces and paint splattered jacket, would be one of two standing? Didn't we know that Jason would be in the finale since he's the kind of guy we love, warm, sweet, kind? Both guys have to suffer the torturous scrutiny of DeAnna's family, sizing the guys up, both individually and a head to head comparison competition, can you say awkward? Of course we know who DeAnna's dad liked. At first he wasn't too thrilled with Jason with his divorce and built in family, but up against Jesse's free snowboarding lifestyle, Jason looked pretty good, you know steady job, family man, sincere, safe and secure (in other words, boring). DeAnna's gram was hysterically funny, her main criteria was which one is the richest? A woman after my own heart! Gotta love the gram! In the end, I think the sister-in-law said it best, when she said that a life with Jason will be fast forwarding your life by 5 years, where as with Jesse, you would be just beginning. Oh yeah, both guys passed the, may I ask for your daughter's hand in marriage, test too. Once back in the Bahama's Jeremy requested to talk with DeAnna again. I guess the guy just can't take no for an answer. Don't cha know when you go back you always look like the fool, and fool he did. It just seemed to me that he couldn't believe that she would pick those other two dorks over him, Mr. Perfect, Mr. I'm successful, Mr. I need to have my law notes on my walls in my apartment to show how great and smart I am. Well, she sent him packing. I did feel a moment of sympathy for him but he'll get someone else. I bet girls are already throwing their panties at him! I loved the presents that Jesse and Jason gave DeAnna on their last chance dates. I'm wondering if Jesse made that little scrapbook himself? He could always open up a scrap booking store once he leaves snowboarding and I thought Jason's bachelorette game was really inventive and original. He's very clever and thoughtful. After the dates, it seemed to me that DeAnna used the "L" word when talking about Jason but in the same breath described him as safe and secure. Do women really want safe and secure? No, they want excitement, fun, adventure, romance and bad boys! And I think Jesse is more that type except he's a good bad boy. I was having second thoughts when Jesse went to get the ring and then started throwing up. Not a good sign! Buying rings and puking don't go together. Looked like he was scared to death about the whole thing. In the end, both guys clean up pretty good, but I hated Jason's pencil legged suit which looked odd on him. When he stepped out of the limo first an "Oh no" escaped my lips as I knew he was headed for a beheading. It was really hard this time around, usually when it is the Bachelor picking, there is always one b#tch that you love to hate so the hope is on the other one. But with this season you just like both guys so much, couldn't they become polygamists? Good guys do get the girl in the end. Jason looked so happy when he stepped out of the limo and almost immediately drops to his knees to propose. Afterward, Jason lamented that he wished DeAnna hadn't made him drop to his knees, but I'm thinking she wanted to see if he would propose to her. I'm wondering why DeAnna wasn't too verbal with both guys. She didn't give the usual "you're a wonderful guy" speech, in fact she gave no speeches at all, she just let both guys do most of the talking. I would have loved to see her tell Jason that he was a wonderful person and really deserved the best girl, just not her. In the end, I think she shocked a lot of people by choosing against type by picking Jesse. I can see them together, but hey Jesse, what will you do when the snow melts? The After the Final Rose episode, DeAnna and Jesse looked very happy together, they were so smoochy, smoochy, get a room! yuck! Could it be that DeAnna is a clinging vine? She was all over poor Jesse, like fur on a bear. What was she trying to prove, that's she's in love? Was she really saying look what you missed Graham? Well, it looks like there's no turning back, the date is set for May 9, 2009! Is ABC planning to televise the nuptials to their loyal bachelor fans?-Single D About the only things I can add are: Jason could have shaved when he came to DeAnna's house. At least he brought flowers for everyone, nice touch. Loved the front porch on DeAnna's house, I'm all about a good front porch! I think her brother got DeAnna thinking about Jason when he asked her what the WOW factor is about him. I don't think Jason really had a WOW factor. Jesse got his hair cut for the family adventure, good thing since DeAnna's dad didn't seem to keen on a son-in-law with long hair. Dad obviously liked Jason the best and really put the screws to Jesse making him look like a deer caught in the headlights when he asked him what he would do when he was too old to snowboard. The next day it's meet the whole family day with both guys there at the same time. DeAnna calls her grandparents Yaya and Papu. I've heard grandparents called a lot of things but those two are new to me. Jesse arrives first still looking nervous. When the doorbell rings, I thought he would jump out of his skin. Camera pans to the front door and we see Jason standing out front jiggling around like he has to pee again. Wasn't he taught to "go" before you leave? Jesse finally relaxes a bit and shows the grandparents the funky handshakes. Grandma seems pretty down with it, you go Yaya! Later, DeAnna gets the heads up that Jeremy wants to talk to her. Did I call that or what? I'm sure most of you who have been watching also just knew it would be him. A teary eyed DeAnna tells him she doesn't feel it in her heart and doesn't want to lead him on and sends him on his way. The last dates in the Bahamas are one last chance at adventure and a lot of kissing. Jesse and Jason give the hand made presents, a scrap book from Jesse and a board game from Jason, how clever! I was wondering if ABC had a hand in those gifts. I really don't see Jesse sitting there making a scrap book. Jason on the other hand, would probably build a shrine to DeAnna in the backyard.

The big day arrives and it's more recap and more of Jason professing his love and Jesse professing his nerves. I'm sorry but if you get so nervous about something that it makes you sick, you probably shouldn't do it! Jason is first up so I'm thinking it ain't you bud. Was it me or did his feet look 5 sizes bigger in that suit? It looked like he was wearing dress clown shoes. DeAnna doesn't speak until Jason starts going down on one knee then she tells him to stop and that she is in love with someone else. Darn, he shaved and everything! So poor Jason rides away in the limo wondering what went wrong.

So it is Jesse who gets to snowboard into the sunset with DeAnna. I did like the way he proposed, asking her if she would spend forever with him. AWE!!!!! Double D

See Jason's interview after the final rose:

http://www.tvfunspot.com/forums/showthread.php?p=111876&postcount=1

The Next Design Star-Suite Sara Evans

This challenge takes us to Opryland and the Gaylord Hotel, where the designers learn that they will design two suites in the design stylings of country songbird, Sara Evans. The designers are split into two teams, playground pickin's with team captains Trisha who picks Mikey V and Tracee and Team Jenn with Matt and Stephanie, is that a dream team or what? They have 28 hrs and $15,000, but first it's a visit to Sara's country estate. Here Sara explains that her style is Southern elegance, shabby chic, mismatchy pieces with color tones of creams and whites with that down home southern comfort. That's me, shabby chic Target. The two hotel suites are large with circular windows and a separate bedroom. Team Jenn seems really organized where Team Trisha seems scattered as Tracee goes into a hundred different directions when shopping. She drives me crazy. I really like the architectural pieces Matt picked out for the bedroom head board. Tracee on the other team picks out old painted doors for their headboards and says to Mikey V that she will take total claim for doing these because he's not so sure of the flaky paint, I don't mind a nose full of flaking lead paint! I was surprised that Trisha and Tracee worked so well together or is it that Trisha has alot of patience, bless her. Back to team Jenn, Jenn keeps saying that she can acid wash all the dark wood furniture. Ok that's great if you have all the time in the world. Are you going to acid wash everything? On the last day, Stephanie's main job was to find the sofa that would go with the other leather sofa in the room and finally brings one back only to find out that it is too large to go into the hotel. Matt asks Steph what's plan B? Like duh, there's no plan B, just move some chairs around the big leather couch (I was like why did they buy that leather couch, that's so not shabby chic!). I'm wondering why they left that important piece for the very last minute? This episode was pretty tame now that the little sh*t stirrer Michael has left the building. Part of this week's challenge was to give a TV presentation of their rooms, while the judges were watching their performance from their judge's desk on the monitors. What was around Cynthia's Rowley's neck? Looked like some kind of neck ring made from tin can rings, are you part of some ring toss game? Tracee was totally tongue tied and what was up with Mickey V? He looked so like some homie with his grey wife beaters tee shirt, yo man, wasss up man! Like Vern said, it was like you better like my shabby chic or I'll beat you. Vern declares Trisha as the best, gee who knew? Next we get to see Sara Evans judging their suites. I thought Team Jenn's suite looked very lackluster, where was the pizazz, where was the wow? The biggest question though was why wasn't there a sofa in the room? Steph kept deferring to her teammates which Vern called her out on it. That's right Steph stand up and take responsibility. I bought the wrong sofa, I was wrong, say it with me. Sara did like Matt's wood work in the bedroom but wished there were more colors on the walls. When Sara saw Team Trisha's suite, Sara let out the biggest surprise horseface, you would have thought that she won a trip to the moon. She obviously liked this room the best and declared this the be the winning room and I surprisingly had to agree. Team Jenn's room which I thought was going to be the winner was just a let down. I would have bet money that Team Trisha's team was going to fail miserably. In the end, it was all about the accessories, all about the color, all about the comfy couches and personal touches. Sara felt so much at home, she got in bed with her shoes and clothes on. I guess the judges couldn't overlook that huge mistake, but the couch thing was like the silent elephant in the room and Stephanie's show was cancelled.-Single D

I Survived a Japanese Game Show - The Claw!

Ben can't seem to get acclimated to Japan and ends up in hospital and eventually sent home. Meanwhile back at the house, mommason makes breakfast for the remaining contestants. No bacon and eggs here. She makes some green stuff with shaved fish on top and soup with more green stuff. Yum! No wonder Ben ended up in hospital!

Darcy returns to take Ben's place on the green team. That didn't break any hearts on the yellow team. The game this week is, become the giant claw! Remember those claw machines at the arcade that you pick out the stuffed animal? Same thing on a giant scale. One contestant from each team becomes the claw while three other team members control the movements. The yellow team is up first with Justin as the claw. He and his team mates do a great job maneuvering around and pick up 10 stuffed panda bears. The green team is watching backstage and Meaghan, as the claw, starts to freak out thinking she won't be able to beat Justin.

The green team takes their places and Meaghan gets the first panda pretty quick and that's it. She couldn't hold on to the pandas and kept giving bad directions to her team mates. The yellow team wins it and as a reward get a day at the spa. At the spa, the team gets treated to a warm sand bath. As one team member puts it, you normally see people doing this on the beach only someone acts like they are peeing on you. After the sand bath, the team goes into a room with a small pond and are told to put their feet in the pond. Small fish, called doctor fish start swarming over their feet and eating the dead skin. Are these baby piranhas or something? I'd be afraid I would come out missing a toe or two!

The yellow loser team has to work in a Pachinko parlor doing various jobs like serving drinks, advertising and cleaning the Pachinko balls. The game looks like a cross between a pin ball machine and a slot machine and are very loud. Those balls are a little smaller than a marble and Donnell gets the job of cleaning them. After getting busted for playing one of the machines, Meaghan is told to go clean the balls. After a fun filled day in a loud Panchinko parlor, the team has to decide who will play the elimination game. Now you would think Meaghan would be the natural choice but no, she and Mary decide it should be Olga and Donnell because they are loud. What?! Let's see, we have a girl who pretty much screwed up and lost the game for the team or two loud people who, as far as I can tell, have been pretty good. I would love to bang some heads together!

Donnell pleads his case and Meaghan & Mary decide they need some man power and keep Donnell. Olga just plain loses it yelling at Donnell that she has had his back and he better not send her up. Since Meaghan seems to be making all of the decisions why didn't she decide who is to go up against Olga instead of Donnell? Donnell needs to grow a set and stand up to her. I know he at least stood up long enough not to be put up against Olga but come on! Anyway, Donnell figures he's a hated man no matter who he picks and sends up Darcy. I felt bad for Darcy since she really didn't deserve to be chosen, heck, she didn't even play!

The game is to deliver packages into slots going against a giant fan while the other throws trash at them. Olga goes first with Darcy doing the throwing. Darcy does pretty good nailing Olga with pillows and blow up toys but Olga manages to get 5 packages delivered. Darcy is up and Olga can't hit the broad side of a barn. It started to look like Olga may have it since Darcy kept falling on her butt. It was not to be and Darcy wins leaving us to say sayonara to Olga as she is carried out by the Japanese men in black.

I'm not sure how much more of this I can watch. I really would like to know where these people come from because I will avoid that place like the plague! Then again, I am the one watching. I do think mommason should have her own show! Double D