Thoughts on the Hannibal pilot

• Hugh Dancy is attending the Hugh Laurie school of five o' clock shadow and pretty convincing American accent. 
• It may be violent and gory but definitely not as gross as some of the corpses on Bones... you know what I'm talking about.
• Mads Mikkelsen gets to keep his European accent as Dr Lecter. How convenient. 
• I hope that's animal lung he's chopping up, but it's a little too huge...?
• I wonder if the sausage was animal or human... noticed that he didn't touch the sausage, haha.
• Filmed in Ontario? Oh man... I thought the weather was a little too sunny for Minnesota :P I keed, I keed!
• Season preview seemed interesting - Eddie Izzard! Gillian Anderson (with long hair)! Holy cow!

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Not offended by The Jeselnik Offensive

Saw the first few episodes of The Jeselnik Offensive, and well... there's a reason why it's The Jeselnik OFFENSIVE, because nothing seems to be off limits to the guy. AIDS, cancer, necrophilia... the list of "oh-oh!" topics are at least a mile long and he's touched on most of them. All because of that freedom of speech thing. It must be great to be American :P

The show's format is still okay, I guess, but to me, running a little similar to Brand X with Russell Brand and Kathy Griffin's show, both of those supposedly "live". But that's for another time.

I've seen and heard other things over the years that offended me more than anything that's ever been said on the show, so I still find it pretty entertaining. Jeselnik saying those things himself is one thing, but having other comedians come on the show (as part of the "panel"; kinda wish he stop saying the word "panel" so much :P) and say stuff the rest of us are thinking? Wow.

So if you're easily offended... don't watch this. Find something else to watch. The title of the show is self-explanatory.

Fashion Star is back!

Fashion Star is back on NBC with some tweaks, namely the host swap out (from Elle Macpherson to Louise Roe), Express replacing H&M as one of the retail buyers and also the format (designers handpicked by the mentors to be in their "teams", yada yada). Not to mention the way bigger and posher runway - they got money now...

I've only ever seen Louise Roe from her guest stints on Fashion Police, but I think she'll be fine.

I personally am not familiar with Express, but it's similar (enough?) to H&M, yes? Can't even access the site right now - either it's overloaded or it got hacked :P

I forgot how much fun watching this show is; mostly because the clothes that come down this runway is meant to be accessible to the hoi polloi and trying to be avant garde at the same time. It's too bad I watch alone or else I'd make a drinking game out of whether any of them get bought (at all), or by whom. 

I've come to realise that it's not hard to tell which items might appeal to which store (which might be what the designers intended, maybe...?) - Saks tend to go with the expensive-looking items, Express the accessible ones and Macy's... a toss up between the two poles.

Because I'm such a sucker, I'll keep tuning in.

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The Face on Oxygen

This is based on me having seen the first two proper episodes of The Face. Don't ask me how since I don't get the Oxygen network.

Heard about The Face awhile ago on Fashion Police, and it's finally started on the Oxygen channel.

I appreciate that they didn't have whole episodes dedicated to the audition process - instead it was a quick cut of who the coaches (Naomi Campbell, Coco Rocha and Karolina Kurkova) picked to be on their teams. I didn't know that anyone on the planet can apply, which is a refreshing change. Neither did I know that Nigel Barker would be hosting this show as his post-ANTM gig. Good on him - haven't seen a decent male host a reality competition show in a while... okay, besides Colby Donaldson on Top Shot.

The format is (fortunately) is not too similar to shows of its ilk: the individual Test Shot challenges are conducted by one of the three coaches in their respective "specialties" (Coco's posing lesson; Naomi's styling class). At least the team challenges are actual shoots for actual brands.

I don't know how objective the supermodel coaches are gonna be on this show because they seem to be taking it personally when they have to send one of their own to be eliminated by the winning coach of the week's team challenges. Naomi keeping the less experienced contestant over the more experienced one (who's one of Karolina's team members) just seem like she's getting her revenge after having one of hers cut by Karolina in the previous episode. 

Luckily it's a limited engagement (8 episodes long), so it won't be so drawn out or all crazy like on ANTM.

Random thoughts:

• It's so weird to hear the phrase "Team Coco" when it's got nothing to do with Conan O' Brien :D Also, she's only 24 and has been modelling for 10 years? Oy vey :P
• Ulta Beauty? Really? I've probably come across the name in passing, but really?! They got to start someplace, I suppose...
• Margaux? Really? Huh...

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The Taste - Foodie version of The Voice?

A while ago, we all only know that Bourdain and Nigella were involved in some cooking competition show for ABC. It finally made its appearance, and it's called The Taste. Top Chef alum Brian Malarkey and Top Chef Masters veteran Ludo Lefebvre were announced later to round out the judging/mentor panel. 

Reading about the format, it reminded me of The Voice, but with food. I admit I don't watch The Voice, but I heard about how the auditions go.

Watching the audition stage, I found that it's interesting quite a number of professional chefs are getting passed over the home cooks for each mentor's kitchens. Not to mention the vegan/vegetarian cooks that try to slip the judges non-meat product unto the spoon, haha :D 

Am I the only one that thinks it a little weird that everyone else except (Brian) Malarkey go by first names? It's probably just me.

After watching the auditions, I don't quite understand how the judges "messed up" and didn't pick someone for their kitchen whose food they liked. What the...?! Maybe they had to vote so quickly, that's why they "screwed up" like that? I don't know...  Interesting that Bourdain picked the pretty ladies for his kitchen/team, but that's just a random observation. At least they have their 4 person teams and the competition begins!

Sucker that I am for food and cooking shows, I'll keep watching to see how the competition part plays out.

PS. Trust Bourdain to come up with these gems: "vomit in terror", "chute of terror".

Thoughts on...Asia's Next Top Model

This is after attempting to catch first airings (not sure who would bother uploading these on YouTube okay, you can find full episodes on the official YouTube channel...) of the nine episodes aired (as of this week)... I definitely missed a few, especially the makeover part, which I enjoy a little too much because it's fun to see some people's bad reactions to getting their hair cut short.

• There's a good mix of contestants - not too many people from the same places from the same countries, etc. Considering how many countries in this part of the world does not have its own Top Model show, that is.
• Can't help but snigger at some of these contestants' names, but I give Bei Si props for not picking her own English name (if her parents already hadn't) to go by in the competition.
• The blatant sponsor placement was a bit atrocious, but an evil necessity.
• Despite it being shot in Singapore, the Malaysian in me was gleeful that the Singaporean got booted first.
• There's a whole lot of fainting and panic attacks going on :P
• After watching America's Next Top Model judging go cray cray in recent cycles, it took some getting used to watching this panel really take things seriously.
• I think the producers' idea of "must also understand and speak English" is a lot looser than my own interpretation.
• To all the people who complained about how the half-white people are still in the competition - about half the eliminated contestants don't exactly fulfill the previous point.

Team Edition Project Runway

At a production meeting...

Producer 1: Season 11, and we're still on the air! Whoda thunk?

Producer 2: I know, right? So what's the gimmick for this one?

Producer 1: Viewers LOVE watching the contestants suffer - so instead of team challenges every few episodes, why not have them EVERY SINGLE EPISODE! The numbers would be through the roof!

Producer 2: Genius! That's settled... let's go for lunch!

[Disclaimer: That was just really fictionalized BS as to how they might have conjured up with the team challenge-only season of Project Runway. Please don't sue me - it was meant to be tongue-in-cheek.]

Just as PR fans are still reeling from the news of Kors' departure (but excited to see what Zac Posen will do - that's just me personally), the PR blog on Lifetime announced (which I found out via Tim Gunn on his official Facebook page) that Season 11 will be all team challenges. And I thought it was just a rumour :P

This move will definitely bring out the human drama, but will the numbers be any better? Also, would the designers be in The Fashion Show-esque "fashion houses" all season long, or would they be drawing buttons out of the velvet bag every elimination challenge?

Which begs the question - why don't they draw scissors out of a box like how they draw knives on Top Chef? LOL. I guess oversized buttons out of the velvet bag is cheaper and safer all around :P

Guess the only way to find out is to watch :P

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