TV Newsy Bits - Monday, April 9, 2007

I hope everyone had a pleasant holiday weekend although it certainly feels more like a winter holiday in many areas! It was cold and snow squalls here, but the snow just came down fast and furious without sticking to the ground.

Here are today's TV Newsy Bits:

• Buddy TV has an interview with Uchenna and Joyce, the latest team eliminated from The Amazing Race 11: All Stars. What I found interesting is that they did have to do the Detour and Roadblock -- it just wasn't shown. They ended up 10 hours behind the last team and spoke highly of Dustin and Kandice.
• Finale dates have been announced for The Amazing Race 11: All Stars (Sunday, May 6) - an hour-long show and Survivor 14: Fiji (Sunday, May 13) - a two-hour finale followed by the reunion show. Crunching the numbers, it looks like Survivor will go for three finalists once again this season.
• The current ratings for American Idol are down 10%, Could it be the Sanjaya Universe?
• It seems that The Black Donnellys has been canceled. There are still five or six (dependent on what articles you read) un-aired episodes and rumors have it that they may end up being available on the NBC website. According to the article I linked here, other shows in danger include: Jericho and Friday Night Lights. The article provides addresses to write to in support of those shows. Men in Trees, Ugly Betty, and Brothers & Sisters have been renewed for another season.

'The Apprentice: L.A.' - East Coast Update - 4/08

The candidates were split into teams of two. Two were fired -- Heidi and Christine.

I can't believe Frank is still in the running.

'The Amazing Race 11: All Stars' - Ep. 9 -or- "Those dirty, dirty hookers..."

Although some interesting events happened during this leg of the race, I found my attention wandering a bit. Perhaps it's because there were no thrilling challenges. Perhaps it's because I so want Mirna gone.

Oh, yeah, Charla can stay, but Mirna has to go. I'll admit that it looked like Mirna either behaved better or was edited to seem like she wasn't as rude this week.

Five teams remain. Who will be eliminated next?

The teams were still in Krakow, Poland, where we last left them. That's probably a good thing. After all, we don't want them sneaking off to Tahiti when we're not looking, right? Because of the Fast Forward intermingled with the Intersection, Oswald/Danny and Joyce/Uchenna shared the first place early start time of 9:48 PM. The last team, Danielle and Eric, left at 3:22 AM. So we no longer have the sixteen-hour gap between first and last.

The lead time didn't make a huge difference as the teams had to arrange for a flight to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. There were no flights until morning, so the teams tried different approaches to obtaining tickets from online to at the airport. Mirna and Charla hogged the two computers at the hotel thus irking Danielle and Eric. Oh, well.

Uchenna and Joyce took a huge chance on the flight which would arrive the earliest if (and it's a big if) they could make a tight connection in Frankfurt, Germany. Charla and Mirna managed to get tickets on a flight before that one while the other three teams ended up on a flight which stopped in Paris.

Well, Uchenna and Joyce's flight was indeed delayed and they missed their connection in Frankfort. Then we didn't see them again until near the end of the show. So, it became a race of four teams for the most part of the show, two teams I especially don't care much for -- Charla/Mirna and Eric/Danielle. I don't like the former mainly due to Mirna and the fake accents both go into when talking to folks from other countries. As for Eric and Danielle, I think he's a jerk and treats her very poorly. He's a misogynist, too. Blech.

At least I have Oswald and Danny and the Beauty Queens (Dustin and Kandice) whom I'm finding more tolerable this season. Thankfully, they haven't crashed a car and saddled another team with it.

Once in Malaysia, the teams had to take a combination of buses and trains to get to the Batu Caves. The hitch was that they had to figure the best and quickest combination of the specified transport to get there. Yawn. However, once there, the Batu Caves were really an interesting place. I only wish they had gone up inside of them instead of just up the stairs to one.

The clue at the caves had teams taking a taxi to the Kampung Baru Jamek Mosque where they faced a Detour. They could choose between Artistic Expression or Cookie Confessional. In Artistic Expression, teams would have to use hand-iron sized stamps to stamp designs on a long banner of cloth, then dye it to match specifications. In Cookie Confessional, somewhere within 600 boxes of cookies, there was a cookie with a black licorice filled center. The key was finding it.

The clue for the Detour also contained a Yield, one of two this season. While Charla and Mirna chose not to use it, the second team through -- Dustin and Kandice -- did. They tossed around the idea of Yielding Danny and Oswald, but decided to Yield Eric and Danielle. Uh-oh... how to make friends and influence people, eh?

Charla and Mirna were leading the race when they decided to do the cookies. Not a good choice, I must say. It cost them time as Dustin and Kandice chose to do the Artistic Expression, not an easy task but those needle-in-a-haystack challenges have sunk many a team during the history of the show. (Who was it with the actual hay in rolls some seasons ago way past dark?)

Oswald and Danny chose to eat the cookies, then chose not to eat the cookies, then ate more cookies, then went off to be Artistic. And they had a spat, too. But their tempers were tame compared to when Eric and Danielle saw they had been Yielded!

"Those dirty, dirty hookers!," said Eric pre-commercial and repeated post-commercial for effect.

The Artistic Expression challenge was tricky. Charla couldn't reach high enough to do the stamping. Oswald and Danny didn't get the number of stamped prints right and they had to do it all over again.

Meanwhile, Eric and Danielle waited out their 30-minute Yield time like sand through the hourglass. They fussed, they vowed revenge on the Evil Beauty Queens. Actually, I think that it may have been a wiser choice to Yield Oswald and Danny although I'm glad they went for Eric and Danielle instead.

Once freed from the hourglass, Eric and Danielle chose the cookie task. Of course, with all the boxes that Charla/Mirna and the ChaChas had gone through, there weren't 600 boxes left. But it was still a formidable task. Danielle actually found the cookie! Now, that was sheer luck and it kept them in the game.

Oh, but it was pretty obvious that all four teams were still in the game because the fifth team had gone missing long ago and would remain missing through the next clue -- the Roadblock.

This Roadblock was as un-thrilling as a Roadblock could ever get. What happened to skydiving? Bungee-jumping? Wrasslin' alligators? One member of each team had to ride a bicycle with an attached platform to collect a stack of newspapers from the nearby neighborhood. The stack had to be eight hands high. (Stifle those yawns.) About the only interesting bits during this challenge were that Mirna actually had to do a challenge and Danielle pointed out that Eric's a woman. She did, too! She said it because she always ends up with the physical tasks.

The arrival order at the Pit Stop was:

1. Dustin and Kandice - Each won a retro-scooter (moped).
   
2. Charla and Mirna
3. Eric and Danielle, despite the Yield.
4. Oswald and Danny.

Hey, weren't there five teams at the start of the show? Why, yes, there were five teams. Uchenna and Joyce arrived late into the night. They followed the clue to the Batu Caves. But then, instead of the clue the others followed, their clue directed them right to the Pit Stop. Once there, they got the bad news from Phil.

Their elimination will make a lot of Rob/Amber fans happy. But there are folks like me out here, too. While I didn't care much for Rob or Amber on Survivor, I enjoyed them as a team on The Amazing Race. And, I liked Uchenna and Joyce, as well.

Mirna and Schmirna must go away!

'The Amazing Race 11: All Stars' East Coast Update 4/08 - Pit Stop and Philimination

The Pit Stop arrival order:

1. Dustin and Kandice - Each won a retro-scooter
2. Charla and Mirna
3. Eric and Danielle (although Yielded by Dustin and Kandice)
4. Oswald and Danny
5. Uchenna and Joyce - Philiminated

A full review/recap will be posted later. Stop on back!

'The Amazing Race 11: All Stars' About to Start

The show is about to start here in the NYC area. By 9 PM EDT, I'll have an East Coast Update with the Pit Stop arrival order and philimination. Later this evening, I'll post a full review/recap.