Randy is probably the oddest player I’ve ever seen on Survivor. Only he could consider it sound strategic play to walk around camp going out of his way to piss everyone off. I understood the logic of it (assure they all vote for him so they know who to give the idol to when Bob came back with it), but it ignores everyone’s intentions past the next day, much less if he would have been fortunate enough to make it to the final 2 or 3. The oddest thing about him is, instead of just acknowledging that he was fighting an uphill battle from the start, admit that the thing looked like a real idol and that he was fooled, he goes off on a tangent about how he wishes to see everyone eaten by some Gabon freak creature.

It’s amazing that for as vindictive as Sugar and Crystal — the latter of which whose been almost completely irredeemable up until last episode when Randy went after her (consciously or subconsciously) with a David Duke light tangent — were, virtually no one is showing any sympathy for Randy. That says a lot about how he carried himself on this show and probably back home. Unfortunately, being the bleeding heart that I apparently am, can’t take too much glee in how Randy was sent packing. Sugar has always struck me as above all the petty bickering, but the ruse to get Randy to play a fake immunity idol proved otherwise.

Never has a cookie caused so much upheaval amongst adults.

She’s still a strong player, seems decent enough and I wouldn’t have any problem with her winning. Additionally, the fact that neither Corinne, Bob or Randy would even consider that she found the idol, proves that they all deserve to be sent home (How does Bob not realize this? Or any of them since Ken chose to send him to Exile. And why did he choose Bob?).

But sending him home should have been enough repercussions, not to mention that it is just poor strategy. He’s going to figure something is afoot, and the more people that flood into Ponderosa the likelier he is to figure out who went out of their way to humiliate him. Considering it was done purely out of spite kind of dampers the spectacle for us. The fact that they had numbers enough to guarantee that he was being sent home is the only reason they were able to pull off such a plan in the first place. It is rare you see that kind of solidarity on Survivor, but I suppose Randy just brings that out of people. Shit, even Charlie and Marcus were laughing at him, and as much as anyone sans Corinne, those two are supposed to be his friends. I guess that speaks to why Bob told Sugar about the fake idol, and why he agreed to use it for nothing more than someone else’s payback.

Onto others in the game, Randy had obviously pissed off everyone long before the master plan he stayed up “all night” concocting, because they really had it out for him at the auction. Several seem to be questioning Ken foregoing everything in the auction after he sent Bob to exile, and I can understand the reasoning: He is already thinking about the jury. Right now, between the three people on the jury, after Matty, Ken is probably the most liked in his alliance. Everyone in that alliance probably assumes this and that will make Matty all the more likely to be a target if it comes down to the five of them.

So, if it comes down to Ken and any mix of Sugar, Suzie or Crystal, who do you think Corinne is going to vote for now that Ken let her have that clue he didn’t need to win anyhow? Or Matty after he let him have that burger? In the short term it seems illogical to come into all that money and not use it, but in the long it makes the most sense. I mean, just look at what uproar those cookies caused.
Looking ahead though, there shouldn’t be much spontaneity for the next two or three episodes if everything goes according to plan (which means Corinne would go home, which we can’t wait for, because of this article here). In lieu of having any more South Park recaps for awhile, we’ll probably do a ranking of the seven remaining participants. We really have no idea how to go about this, as this isn’t the strongest group of players we’ve seen. The fact that the biggest power move played was essentially an elaborate prank kind of speaks to that.

Still, an eventful hour of television that we would be lying to say we weren’t entertained by it. These are the types of eventful episodes everyone trudges through those first five or six episodes of every season for and why, in this site’s humble opinion, this is still the best reality series available on television.

Sunny finale and Office recaps later.

• The goth kids and their incessant bitching saved the episode. It was similar to the Crab People episode when Mr. Garrison resents mainstream America taking to the stereotypical forms of gay culture, in that these are two groups of people attempting to distinguish themselves, and for whatever reason, everyone wanted to assimilate and make their trends or lifestyle a fad.

• Best scenes with the goth kids included everything with the kids playing soccer (mistaking them for vampires, and especially the Gap clothes), the scene with them driving the car all morosely listening to that wretched music, followed by them casually going to the trunk of the car to reveal the “head vampire” bound and gagged. And we howled at the randomness of Scottsdale being named the worst place you can send someone. I have no idea if that was from Parker and Stone’s perspective, or the Goth kids disliking it because the sun is always out in Scottsdale and it is permanently over 100 degrees, either way that was probably the highlight of the episode.

This is the first Item to pop up on a google image search for "Vampires": A transexual member of the undead. Enjoy.

• In fact, all the music they listened to was spot on. It was just glib for the sake of glibness, and from what I can recall from high school, that tended to be the point of that genre. I’m not sure if Goth kids actually existed during the time I was in elementary school, but in high school I do remember them being the first to smoke weed, drink alcohol and scoffed at those who didn’t. So it was some nice symmetry with the coffee and cigarettes.

• I was surprised they closed the series up with an episode that had Stan, Kyle, Cartman & Kenny as peripheral characters. They’ve already done a couple of those this season with “About Last Night” and “Eek, A Penis“. This made three and I can’t recall them ever doing three non-main characters episodes in the past. I appreciate it as it keeps the series fresh and demonstrates they’re not a one trick pony, but it looks like they might be running on empty and this contract that expires in 2011 might turn out to be the last.

• With the exception of Randy, Butters is our favorite side character. We loved “Butters Very Own Episode“, but got nothing out of what they did with him in this one. That opening scene in the computer class should have been a lot funnier than it was. In fact, after Mr. Garrison left the room, I’m not even sure if they were angling for humor there or just doing setup.

This episode, kind of like a below average Sunny episode, is loaded with promise but failed to deliver. Maybe they were just exhausted from the election episode and mailed this one in. Not entirely sure, but half of it had us in stitches, the other half had us scratching our head trying to figure out what the punchline was. Sans the pilot episode of True Blood, we haven’t seen any vampire shows films in a long, long time. Blade 2 was probably the last of them. So if anything was a reference to that it flew over our head.  One thing I was confused about, if the Goth kids didn’t shop at Hot Topic, where did they shop at, per say?

Maybe some links later.

Jimmy Fallon, who we expect to be nothing short of an unmitigated disaster when he takes over for the 12:30am slot after Conan bolts for The Tonight Show, is admittedly off to an interesting start hiring The Roots as his house band. We are conflicted with this because 1) Is this really the best gig The Roots can pull now? They’ve been relegated to peers with the assorted cast of characters that plays on Kimmel? And 2) There is no way Fallon is able to command a stage every night without some casual interaction, so at least The Roots might be able to liven up the broadcast. Ultimately it’s just depressing that they now have to be a sidesshow to someone like Jimmy Fallon.

Who else feels old with this development?

HBO has renewed Little Britain USA despite fledgling ratings and mixed reviews. They’re reportedly looking to add new characters in an attempt to bring in a new audience. I’m not going to lie, I’ve never watched the show and have no idea what it consists of. But usually when no one was interested in your old characters, they’re not going to be interested in your new ones, either. This is kind of indicative of why HBO is struggling right now, is it not?

Because she’s an attractive actress in Hollywood and attractive actresses in Hollywood are entitled, spoiled and temperamental, Kristin Chenoweth demands to know the fate of her series Pushing Daisies. She explains her demeanor as “impatient” and her mood as “frustrated”, because she’s totally different from every other actress that everyone else on set has to tolerate. Sad thing is, as closely as I follow all this shit (other than just I follow all this shit), is that I had no idea who she was until I saw that picture of her on the link. It must be even more frustrating being completely obsolete when you’re a fame whore.

Rashida Jones is set to join the cast of Amy Poehler’s Office-like or Office spinoff series, making every coed capable of a school-girl crush squeal in delight. One thing I’m confused about and haven’t been able to find any updates for, is Ed Helms still being offered his own spinoff? And if so, is this his series? Are Amy Poehler’s new show and Ed Helms’ new show one in the same?

Because every facet of every industry in America has to immediately react to Barack Obama winning the presidency, NBC is producing a new series entitled Making Friends With Black People; that will focus on race relations in contemporary America. Amazingly enough, the show is still planning on casting the series without any black people in it, just white people talking about everyday happenings that involved black people.* Wow, what a brave new world we live in.

I’ve got great news for those of you who can’t get enough melodramatic crime shows for the 150 hours a week they consume during CBS’ primetime schedule: You can now watch reruns for Numb3rs and Criminal Minds over the weekend. Now, instead of doing something remotely interesting with your free time — Like watching The Wire – now you can melt your brain with the same bland nonsense you watch all week. Huzzah! For the first time in my life, I actually wish that writers weren’t getting residuals on syndication.

And finally, this article reports on the undying popularity of Alvin and The Chipmunks even fifty years after its inception. Of course its still popular. Kids watch it and kids are by and large idiots. Put an image of an animal on a screen, give him a “wacky” voice and watch them come filing in. It works for Madagascar 2 I don’t understand why it wouldn’t still work for Alvin and The Chipmunks. I’m pretty sure that’s how the Hitler youth got started, Goebbels came running onto a stage in a bunny suit and screamed propaganda into a microphone with a high pitched voice, he had them asking for autographs once he finished his speech. *

*Neither of these are even remotely true.

Maybe some links later but I wouldn’t hold my breath.

I have some good and bad news for all South Park fans: The good news is they might end the series with a full scale South Park movie in theaters (Let’s go spend more money! Weeeee!), the bad news is that they do plan to end the series at some point, and for that I curse them. I curse them to hell for only providing me with roughly fifteen years of high-quality animated entertainment. Is no one reliable these days?

Some guy who plays Anna Paquin’s characters brother on True Blood is shocked (SHOCKED!) that he is so frequently naked on the vampire series. Welcome to life as a low budget actor on a big budget series, man. At least you’re getting some face time. Sure, your face might always be buried inside a vampires nether regions, but at least that’s you up there.

Simon Cowell is now claiming that he never handed over $9 million to his ex-girlfriend after she dumped him through a text message. Yeah, I’m still believing the original story. Why don’t you hand me $9 million, Simon? I won’t tell anyone you’re gay either. Swear to God.

Seth Rogen is creating a series for Showtime about twenty-somethings who run a porn store. Wow, so the raunchy jokes will come fast and easy? For some reason this would have sounded a lot more appealing two years ago. Still, I like the idea of film stars going to television and not considering it a step down. Even though in terms of lifestyle, it most definitely is.

To no one’s surprise, reality show contestants can occasionally be combative and irritable attention whores. When of them is arrested for public intoxication and disorderly conduct, it really never comes as a surprise. So when Ace from this season of Survivor: Gabon does just that, we are kind of hesitant to actually put in a post that is supposed to be a psuedo-news post. Saying a Survivor contestant was arrested, particularly one with as much arrogance as Ace, doesn’t exactly qualify as earth-shattering.

Speaking of which, Leslie Streeter at the Palm Beach Post wonders whether Randy is the nastiest Survivor contestant ever (In terms of personality, though he on a short list for looks as well). While he might not be the meanest contestant the show has ever had, he is probably the least apologetic about his hostility. It stands to reason that Sugar, who cries everytime she votes someone off, cannot stand the guy. Basically, if Sugar hates you on a personal level, then there’s a good chance you are Lucifer’s kin.

Kristen Bell, the hot blond from Forgetting Sarah Marshall, is defending the new season of Heroes by comparing it to their first season, which she then compares to the first season of 24 and Lost and describes the two of them as “among the best” ever. Umm, Has she even seen The Sopranos or The Wire or Mad Men or Friday Night Lights? These are among the most recent best premiere seasons of dramatic television. Yet she throws some off the cuff answers into the mix because the shows have name recognition. Heaven forbid she mention something original. No, I don’t know why I give a shit.

Obviously, her shitty taste in television would not be a deal breaker.

Julianna Margulies, the still brain meltingly attractive 42 year-old actress from the heyday of ER, will essentially be the only headliner not making a cameo in the storied show’s series finale. And I can understand why, given how much her career has skyrocketed since the good ol’ days of the infamous series. Why, she did a Sopranos cameo and a scrubs cameo. And she was in, uhh…*scratches head*…well, I’ll leave it to you to judge how he career has gone. Clearly she has no need to re-energize the brand.

Stephen Colbert was roasted by several Washington insiders to raise money for the spina bifida. I don’t know why, but to see this live sounds like the best time a person could legally have. You get to see politicians pretend to be human, Stephen Colbert keep retort with his own brand of comedy and you get the self-righteous validation that comes with donating large sums of money to charity. That type of validation doesn’t just present itself every day, you know?

The Maloof brothers are working with Mark Burnett to form an NBA reality series. If you needed an answer as to why the Sacramento Kings haven’t seen the post-season in three years and are unlikely to do so in the near future, I think you just got your answer. If you want to entertain me, Maloof brothers, hire some more fucking cocktail waitresses for your casino. Don’t leave me with an empty neat Jameson’s glass while I’m hemorrhaging money at your Pai-Gow tables and all will be fantastic. Me and Kings fans would appreciate it.

Much maligned NBC executive Ben Silverman is actually expecting to have his contract renewed, as Katherine Pope is set to take the fall for the newly canceled series’. In short, they’re getting rid of someone who wasn’t such a controversial choice but still holding someone accountable, regardless of how much responsibility she actually bears. It’s basically the justification for 95% of NFL head coaching terminations.

(For this last link, there are spoilers for later seasons of The Wire. I know a lot of people who’ve taken to the DVD’s to watch the acclaimed series, and nothing is worse than having the plot spoiled for you. Though by the time you’re done with it, you realize that you probably should have seen everything coming. Regardless, do not read if you fit this mold).

And finally, this was written a week ago on the Huffington Post, but it details what Obama can learn from The Wire as he enters his first term as commander in chief. Considering how much his rise to power has mirrored Carcetti’s on a national level, we’d say there is quite a bit. I do not want to argue politics on this site, and I do not agree or disagree with everything in this article. But when he says Obama should adopt Stringer’s unification tactics for the drug trade and apply them to foreign policy, he conveniently forgets to mention that if Omar and Brother Mouzone hadn’t killed Stringer, Marlo eventually would have. If Marlo is willing to betray and murder Prop Joe who mentored him through everything, then certainly he wouldn’t hesitate to put one in a guy’s dome, whose only contribution to his empire was to inform him that getting his car registered in his mother’s name is a surefire way to avoid prosecution.

Back tomorrow with more of the same.

When we looked at the title of the two installments for this episode, we were mightily intrigued. One was obviously pertaining to video games and the other we figured would be akin to Tim boxing the old man, which we enjoyed quite a bit. Both had their moments but neither lived up to expectations. We are still waiting on the magic from the first five episodes to return, but sadly I think it may have left permanently.

The first half, entitled “Insurmountable High Score” , Tim manages to incidentally crush the spirit of a recovering alcoholic when he breaks his pinball record without so much as even touching the flappers on the machine. It leads to Tim being ridiculed for being heartless and inconsiderate for pretty much the entire episode, despite their not being anything he could have done about it sans unplugging or breaking the machine. Never the less, in standard Tim form, he ends up attempting to reconcile and only makes matters worse. Eventually driving the man and his girlfriend to homelessness after costing him his job and throwing a dart in the woman’s eye.

Only on this series could pinball be the primary source of so much misery.

Not to say it didn’t have its moments, particularly in the opening moments of the episode where Tim was semi-intentionally interrupting the mailman during his speech. But it lacked a certain plausibility that the earlier episodes had the benefit of. No one would blame Tim for the bosses replacing him with cubby holes, and no one would hold him responsible for the ridiculous scene with the Pinball machine either. Everything was put into place just to drum up a comedic tone, and none of if even felt like it would have been that difficult to explain. That is where this episode fell flat and some of their better efforts worked.

In the second half of the episode, “Tim Vs. The Baby”, we thought he would end up literally losing to a toddler in something. Instead it was him getting berated by several new mothers, his girlfriend, Stu…pretty much anyone who made an appearance in the episode except for Rodney and his real-estate agent Brooklyn caricature of a friend.  This episode, showed a little more originality for a series that is starting to look more and more like a one trick pony. We hope to see a resurgence with what few episodes they have left (we actually have no idea and wouldn’t be surprised if this season ended next week along with Entourage).

In short, better than past two weeks but certainly not their magnum opus. We expect better from a series that has shown so much potential over the past couple months. We expect they’ll get back on track before season’s (series’?) end, whenever that may be.

Links later. I promise.

Vince has always been a spoiled character. sorely lacking any real world perspective. Like turning down a $1,000,000 model shoot to chase a girl but never talk to her again. But at the same time we couldn’t help but sympathize with him while he was being chewed out in front of hundreds of stagehands on set. Sure, we thought the takes he was giving were dry and lacking any real depth, but the reaction to it seemed wholly unnecessary.

Obviously we thought everything would be resolved by the end of the episode, and either the director would have been canned or they would have made peace with each other. Instead they send all four of the characters both to Queens for an undisclosed period of time after all production is shut down, Dana Gordon will probably lose her job and Ari (at least for now) regretting passing on the studio job.

So long Dana, we hardly knew ye.

The climactic scene with the director running into John Ellis’ office while everyone chased him was fairly cartoonish. I hope there was a precedent for that, because the shaky camera and angered looks on everyone’s faces while they all trot-jogged through that office was…abrupt. I guess that was supposed to be in character for that director, but they went so far out of their way to vilify him this episode that it didn’t feel organic, but rather a plot piece forced upon us to justify Vince flying back home. We will concede that he was a welcomed change to Walsh, who had ran his course about five episodes into last season.

Turtle being given a subplot in the penultimate episode was unexpected but welcomed. Out of the five main characters, he is given by far the least amount of screen time. Its not even close. Drama is second to last and he has been given girlfriends, back-story, a career and a persona (which is like Paulie Walnuts at this point).  But Turtle has been given a music manager career that  they touched on for maybe five episodes before Wee-Bey from The Wire “deaded” that, a girlfriend that up and disappeared after roughly two or three episodes, and an unintentionally comical infatuation for overpriced low-top sneakers. That’s it.

But last night we got some back story, a real name, an indication that he wasn’t always a shiftless moocher. So while it looks like this is over for now, it was a refreshing change. Even if it was completely inconceivable and just an excuse to squeeze one more cameo and simultaneously get Jerry Ferrara’s girlfriend some acting work.

All in all, it was a pretty solid lead-in to a finale for what’s a semi-bounce back season (If it wasn’t for installments like “Redomption” and “Tree Trippers“, we would go with the full-fledged bounce back instead using the “semi” caveat). Entourage has never been a great work of art as either a comedy or a drama, but we are glad to see that they decided to show a little more ambition this season.

Life and Times of Tim review later.

We’ll start with The Office first, because it was probably the more disappointing of the two. “Business Trip” was setup nicely with Oscar, Andy & Michael taking a business trip to Winnipeg in the middle of November. The only way that group could seem more mismatched is if they through Meredith into the mix, like it seemed like they were going to in the cold open. But nothing about the setting, save for Andy and Oscar bonding over Angela in the strangest manner possible, really worked. At this point now it’s just cruel to the character to have not only Andy drunk dialing Angela while Dwight listens in on the other end with her, but they have him feeling guilty about it the following morning.

While we like Michael standing up for himself in the feeblest thrown gauntlet we’ve seen on television after the blond from Reno 911 threw him out, he’s too much of a tragic figure at this point. I’m sure he’ll eventually rebound, but at the moment its like watching a puppy being tortured and we can’t pinpoint a reason for it.

The Jim-Pam development was probably one of the more contrived attempts to appease the audience we’ve seen this series partake in. The fact it was resolved by the end of the episode is what felt the most…unnatural. They’ve spent the entire season setting up some climactic reunion of sorts, and the best they can do is have her fail a class, him support her decision to stay in New York, and for her to come back after a day of sobbing contemplation. It was a nice little moment for those whose primary reason for watching the series is this relationship, but even they have to feel a bit underwhelmed after that.

Somehow this picture makes everything all better.

Not their best work, we did love the Ryan-Kelly subplot, mostly because of Ryan’s ultimatum (”You want to see me do more pushups?”) and Darryl’s elation. And like mentioned before Andy and Oscar forming a platonic union of sorts was, as Andy put it, “delightful”. We suspect he wasn’t talking to him at Angela’s behest, hopefully that’s one platonic union that ends shortly.

It’s Always Sunny resembled last night what it has too many times in recent history: a brilliant premise for these characters and a promising setup but with no follow through. In the second half of the episode, about the only time we laughed was when Charlie and Dennis were comparing their capacity for leg movement when doing the splits. Outside of that, the cold open and the actual abduction in which all the characters screamed over their heavy metal music what they had intended to portray as a sincere offering to help and instead came off as creepy and threatening; we didn’t really get much out of this one. Even the joke of the family misinterpreting their actions ran its course when they had Dee translate for them.

Maybe this was sort of like Wednesday night’s South Park, in that you might need to have seen Extreme Makeover to really appreciate the episode, just like you might have to have seen High School Musical to like Parker and Stone’s parody of it. But we felt like everything that was referenced was self-explanatory in some way (Charlie’s obsession with Sears, “Bringing in the community”, etc.) and just fell flat on its own accord.

We might need to see The Office again to reevaluate how it stands once this season’s arc is over. This was a plot heavy episode and the conclusion of this season might reflect favorably on what we saw last night (generally speaking, The Office probably pieces together the best finales on television). But with It’s Always Sunny, the finale is next week, so we’re pretty certain this is in the bottom half of their episode barrel. It was no “Who Pooped The Bed?“, but it was closer to that than “Mac Bang’s Dennis’ Mom“. In other words, based on how this season has gone, “The Gang Gets Extreme” fell exactly where it probably should have.

That’s it until Monday or Tuesday. Enjoy the weekend.

Pre-credits scene, Kota comes back from TC marveling at Ken butting heads with Marcus and getting him voted out. Ken’s doing the whole look at the introvert coming out of his shell bit. Bob has been all but guaranteed he is going should they lose again.

Over at Fang, Matty laments in all his surfer boy psuedo-charm. Corinne begins making insane demands over minute things, like put down the package that came with treemail like it’s containing nuclear weaponry. Guess what, it had a bunch of sticks and intentionally dinged up props they can use to practice for their next challenge. Just like it always was and always will be.

Corinne looks devastated upon discovering that Marcus was sent packing, and claims that Marcus didn’t “deserve” to leave the game, in the words of Snoop who used the words of WIll Munny, deserve has nothing to do with it, you shortsighted twat. Anyhow, the game is slinging baseballs as far as possible and eventually attempting to land them in a hole. Bob is doing the slinging for Kota on the first two “holes” and Matty for Fang, Ken chips it in to give kota the first point. You know how golf is incredibly slow and monotonous? Yeah, well, this is basically the same principal, but sped up a little to cater to our attention span. So while it isn’t slow, it’s still monotonous.

In short: Fang gets the second point to send them into a grudge match, Randy begins arguing about the tension or something on the slingshot and looks like he wants to hit Matty in the back of the head with a shovel and bury him alive. Given that the “hole” (its really a contraption that Survivor production put together) is an inch away, it is all wholly unnecessary. Even after they won Randy wouldn’t let the argument about the tension on the sling drop. Considering character is half of this game, its about the most insane thing we’ve seen in the seven seasons or so we’ve watched.

At the reward where Corinne’s smiles make my eyes bleed because she’s won about a dozen challenges where she didn’t really contribute. Literally, she sat it out. Again. Matty manages to take the cake and attribute this win to God, I’m not sure if it was done in jest or seriously. A two year old girl saddles up to Corinne, and we couldn’t stress enough that her parents need to intevene.

They discuss Marcus’ ouster and Charlie literally says that he was doing all the thinking for them. Brilliant. What the fuck did you come out here for? They start dancing with the natives and Randy is under the impression one of them liked him. He is quite self deprecating when he says a woman hasn’t come onto him in twenty years, but he seems entirely too excited.

Back at Kota, Ken is ecstatic to be at the island with “two very beautiful women” in regards to Susie and Crystal. At least he isn’t completely superficial and we are liking his chances seeing that he isn’t going to be manipulated by Sugar or Corinne. He’s just genuinely decent and says something similar about all women, which is why he’s going to lose.

Bob is at exile and looking for the idol, which he’s of course going to discover that it has been claimed already, and Sugar’s boasting about being the sole possessor of it is going to look entirely idiotic if he announces to everyone at Immunity that she has it. Which he should do.

Naturally, Bob proves to be one step ahead of us and throws together a jangly looking fake idol (though not as bad as Ozzy’s last season) that he is going to claim is his to his tribe should they have to go to TC. Its a pretty sound idea, but it overlooks the fact that Crystal and Ken have spent a lot of time with Sugar, and if she has it like he suspects she does, then there stands a good chance that they know about it as well. Unless he can pull some contrarian bullshit out of his ass with Susie, he might be out of luck.

Over at Fang, they get mail and begin speculating as to the makeup of the challenge. Randy bad mouths Crystal’s size while everyone stands around awkwardly silent sans Corinne, who is naturally laughing.

At Immunity, they do indeed discover that they are merging and competing for individual immunity. Bob is understandably more thankful than anyone else. The challenge is pretty standard: burn through a rope that is elevated above their stations. Not to be anticlimactic, but Susie wins in a landslide. The only other contestant to even get a flame going is surprisingly Sugar. It was pretty disgraceful on everyone else’s part. It looks like not only was Marcus doing all the thinking for them, but he and Susie are the only reason Kota is still alive.

Back at camp, everyone pretends to be ecstatic to be around each other, considering Randy’s claim that he isn’t going back to camp with Crystal and it is either him or her going, we imagine Ken will be sent packing. Matty at least understood everyone’s bullshit. Charlie seems to break it down honestly for us, as he says Susie, Ken, Matty & Crystal are an alliance, and Charlie, Corinne, Randy & Bob are the other.

Corinne gets out and out nasty talking about how she must do all these laborious activities like pretend to care about her and be interested in what she is saying just so she’ll do exactly what Corinne wants her to. God, life is so unfair sometimes.

The Good alliance determines they need to get rid of Charlie because he’s “the brains”, like it makes a fucking difference who goes home as long as you maintain numbers. Sugar goes off on an explanation about how she doesn’t trust anyone there. It’s a good mentality to have, but being the dreaded swing vote is terrible in the long run.

At TC, it looks like the second Kota alliance is on the fringe of collapsing until Crystal jumps into the fray and asks Randy why he doesn’t like her. Its all pretty frivolous and none of it is necessary. But they love making declarative statements. Apparently Ken’s maturity is shining through, as both Charlie and Randy comment on it. Sugar is asked about her feelings in the game, and everyone reacts noticeably but isn’t sure how to interpret it. Randy votes for Crystal calling her a “bitch” and Charlie does the same calling him “his Marcus”; Ken votes for Charlie. Sugar contemplates her decision and if there is a god, she will go with Charlie (that came out a lot worse than I intended it to). The rest read as such:

Crystal, Crystal, Crystal, Crystal, Charlie, Charlie, Charlie, Charlie…..Charlie! Thank you, Crystal. This season might actually be redeemable now. Of all the people in that alliance, we hate to see Charlie go, but it is for the greater good given his alliance. It is time to send Randy out, then Corinne, then pave way for Ken to take this all the way to the victory podium.

In his parting words, Charlie is happy to go out on a blindside if he has to go out. Though reading Crystal’s name four times first was a bit cruel. Anyhow, he’s just happy to feel Marcus’ warm embrace one more time.

Next week, Randy strips naked because he’s a shut-in and lies his ass off trying to sway the tide. Probably no one will believe him and its a shame Sugar hates him so passionately, being that she’s the deciding vote and all. Still, I can’t knock him for trying, just for everything else about his personality.

I’m not sure that was the case here. But the difference between this episode and, say, “About Last Night“, was that I felt anyone could watch “About Last Night” and find something enjoyable about it. You didn’t necessarily have to see the Ocean’s 11 movies. Whereas if you were as confused as I was about a year ago to the High School Musical phenomenon, we could certainly understand dismissing this entire episode as a failed effort and flip on the Blazers game.

Despite having never seen any of these movies, I could relate to Cartman, Kyle, Stan & Kenny’s reaction to it. Virtually every television series that we hold in contempt on this site gets high Nielsen ratings, and all I am left to do is wonder why American Idol, Dancing With The Stars, Two and A Half Men, Deal or No Deal, CSI, etc. are considered in vogue. Our disdain for these shows isn’t an effort to be counter-cultural, but stems from a genuine confusion to what the appeal is.

We couldn't pick these people out of a lineup.

This seemed to be the dilemma that the four boys were facing, and it was fucking hysterical. Stan telling everyone snapping fingers behind him in unison to fuck off was the high point for us. Or at least after their initial reaction to everyone in the school breaking into choreographed song and dance. There is an old SNL skit with Norm MacDonald that was a West Side Story parody, and MacDonald plays the leader of one of the gangs who is completely dismayed when his and the rival gang break out into song and dance right before a supposed street fight. That was the general reaction they had in their lunch room: what the fuck is going on?

This wasn’t the first time Parker and Stone have expressed confusion/disgust at the growing popularity for varying dance styles in this country. They did a You Got Served parody a couple seasons ago (probably a top ten episode under our watch), and the four characters then had much the same reaction to that as they did to this: is there a reason everyone is dancing and challenging/encouraging me to do the same? It was in the same vein as “Asspen“, only with skiing instead of dancing.

These probably constitute some of my favorite South Park episodes, when they observe and dissect popular trends, usually through a parody of a film or television show when everything about the trend in question seems a tad off-kilter and embarrassing. When Cartman says he is getting old and going to kill himself because he doesn’t identify with the world anymore, we have never contemplated suicide but we understood where he was coming from. That was one of the more haphazard instance from Parker and Stone to using their characters as mouthpieces.

We also had a great subplot running in this episode with the introduction of Mr. Queermo and his timid yet popular son Brydon. I have no idea if these two were ripped straight from the film (I imagine Brydon was) but they need to become recurring. Maybe not in with the same consistency as Butters or Craig, but definitely like Towelie is a recurring character. This can’t be the end of Bryden and his overbearing closeted father, it just can’t.

Also brought into the foray was Stan Malkenson, who seemed to replace Kyle as Cartman’s whipping boy. We like the running theme this season of all four characters being considerably unpopular — as they were always regarded in episodes past as the in crowd — after all these seasons of getting everyone into trouble. This is the fourth episode out of six that has followed that same theme: both “Pandemic”, “Pandemic 2″, “Breast Cancer Show Ever” and this one. At least they stick with some continuity, because we seem to have already forgotten about Wendy beating the shit out of Cartman, which would sully his reputation more than any disregard for musicals.

Another great episode with one left to go in this portion of season twelve. It’s been a slightly better than average run for the now infamous series, we fully expect them to close strong next week.

Links later.

As I’m sure all of you have heard by now, Jennifer Aniston will be on 30 Rock tomorrow night. For all the promotion this has gotten, if this doesn’t make Arrested Development look like According to Jim then it was well over-hyped. Conclusion: It is over-hyped. Anyhow, you can watch three clips of her cameo here, and the person who posted them made a point to mention how much funnier Aniston on this show than she has ever been in any of her movies. Considering all her best work is in drama, that isn’t a terrible surprise. In regards to the comedies she’s been in, well yeah, its astounding how good writing can make an actor seem talented and bad writing can make her seem pedestrian.

And this is why I fucking hate Nielsen’s: According to the archaic ratings system, 30 Rock’s audience decreased from their sophomore episode that guest starred Oprah. The implication of course being that Oprah drove away viewers. Does anyone believe for a fucking second that this actually happened? Either everyone tuned into the premiere out of the excitement of having 30 Rock back (ohmigodohmigodohmigod!) and a good portion of the audience was over the initial rush that they decided to just record the show for later; or Nielsen’s samples such a small portion of the country that it isn’t really indicative of any trend in the marketplace. Either way, it needs to be drastically modified.

Because sub-par impersonations, over-acting and bad timing are so in vogue these days, rival networks are searching for their own version of SNL. My question is: why now? SNL has been on the air for what? 35 years now? Its as bad as it has ever been, it is overran with commercials and musical acts and flat performances. In the ninety minutes NBC gives to SNL, you get about twenty minutes of sketches. A ratio that’s so disproportionate that I am surprised internet access hasn’t made the show completely obsolete. So, why now? Was Tina Fey’s Sarah Palin really that historic or are our standards just lower? Anyhow, I’m glad to see that comedic variety shows have fallen the way of reality series about two families exchanging members or dance competitions.

HBO has nine pilots in the works, this guy at the LA Times wonders which of the chosen few will become their next Sopranos. The answer? None. Sopranos reached both commercial and critical success unlike anything ever on television before it, and we will likely never see that again for a number of reasons. 1) Mob culture has a certain bent appeal in this country that dwarfs any other genre. 2) Our aesthetic taste has collectively diminished with the likes of Deal or No Deal and redundant cop shows. 3) David Chase followed a formula that is virtually impossible to replicate. He brought in a mainstream audience in the first two seasons, making The Sopranos a dark comedy as much as it was a drama. As much as I like The Wire (even more so than David Chase’s magnum opus), it couldn’t hold a candle to what The Sopranos was able to accomplish.

Halfway through the third season (”University”), the series made a dramatic shift from dark dramedy to a study of American culture through the prism of an upper class family who just happened to be associated with the mob. As much complaining as their was about the last three seasons of that series, we have no idea how it held the ratings it did. Our best explanation would be intrigue, the average viewer wanted to know how it would end even if it meant sitting through hours of television they deemed monotonous. I hope they were happy.

Nothing like buying something you practically already own.

Speaking of The Sopranos, David Chase is optimistic about the reaction to the new box set, which we have every intention of buying but still do not have the temperament to pay for after buying every individual season. He also squashes any rumors about a movie so the fans can have some closure. Everyone just needs to chill out on the film adaptation of HBO series’. Sex And The City made one because they saw a cash cow and the series has always been fluff anyhow. The only way Chase is going to tarnish his work here is if he goes through a divorce and wants (not needs) to compensate for the increased overhead.

Big Boi from Outkast will make a cameo on Law & Order. You’re not going to believe this, but he will be playing a criminal. In the same vein as Mike Vick, he will be suspected of smuggling animals and probably talk like Omar Little before being arrested and sent to prison for life. Because everyone at the end of a Law & Order episode justice is always served with an iron fist.

Back with South Park recap tomorrow.