It's Finally Over on Unan1mous

For the last time I wasted another chunk of my time on Unan1mous. Thank goodness that it’s finally over.

So, a few thoughts…first, someone in editing should get an award for “best stretching of time in a reality show.” They stretched very little footage into weeks worth of television. Kudos to you.

Second, did anyone else do the math on the whole “lose a dollar a second” thing? At $1 per second, they lost $86,400 a day. Which, by the way, makes no sense that they were told that it would be their last vote since by morning the money would be gone. Anyways, at $86,400 a day, they were down there for less than 10 days. The way that they were acting you would have thought that they had been there for months.

Finally, the contestants kept giving advice for the next people to play the game. Are they really going to make another season of this show? Please…no…

So Tarah walked away with some money and they all got to leave the bunker. And now get 30 minutes a week of my life back.

Another Episode of Unan1mous...

I don’t know what annoys me most about last night’s episode of Unan1mous. Ryan Seacrest promising at the end of Idol that this would be the final episode. The ridiculous voice-overs that promise so much more than we saw. Or the fact that I’ve sunk this much time into what may be one of the worst shows on television. Either way, you might as well just stamp “IDIOT” on my forehead now.

Some Thoughts...

First, can I just say how happy I am that NBC has realized the error of their ways in putting Celebrity Cooking Showdown and pulled the final episodes from the air. They actually (around here, at least) put on a re-run of Deal or No Deal instead. Really.

I just had a chance to watch this week’s episode of The Amazing Race, and I’m glad that I finally did. It was a great episode. I loved the location – it was so beautiful, and I was really glad that so many of the contestants stopped to notice and appreciate their surroundings (rather than complain about them). I didn’t hear anyone moan and groan about people not speaking English, which was really refreshing.

Eric & Jeremy’s luck looks like it has finally run out, which couldn’t be worse timing. How they got so lost delivering their camel is beyond me. The one thing I did learn is that even though we heard the voice-over letting us know that they had to drive 1 mile, they most likely didn’t know that. According to Brennan (who won season 1), a lot of times the contestants don’t know that sort of information – it’s added in production for our benefit. So the frat boys didn’t know how close it should have been, but still – they should have realized something was amiss much earlier. And then they tried a “shortcut” to the pit stop? That just seems ridiculous.

I was so glad to see that this was a non-elimination round (finally!). I love the hippies – they play with such enthusiasm and a fantastic attitude. Hopefully the way they have treated the other teams will come into play and they’ll be able to get some donations at the beginning of this next leg.

The other show that I caught up on today was Unan1mous. I know, I am such an idiot for continuing to watch. My only defense is that at least I am watching it on tivo, so I’m not wasting quite as much time. But it really is just a time drain. Nothing happened. Really. It’s like watching a soap opera – you can miss a week or two on a soap and it’s like you never left. I keep thinking that I’ll stop watching, but now I actually care what happens. I’m such a sucker.

Where are the blogs?

Ok, so I know that there were some GREAT episodes of reality tv this week, yet no new blog entries. Well...it's Passover. So I spent Wednesday, Thursday, AND Friday nights with family. What an adventure. So I've been spending some quality time today with my tivo catching up on tv. Some thoughts...

American Idol...that might have been the cruelest results show ever. Did they really need to string those kids along for a full hour by showing family videos? And having everyone in the bottom three singing? (poor Elliott…he just didn’t know what to do with himself!) I was kind of surprised that Elliott was in the bottom three, but not shocked at all that Bucky went home. Idol does Rod Stewart does American classics should be interesting next week…

Amazing Race…LOVED the fact that Lake & Michelle are finally gone. I was so worried that it would be the hippies. Am I the only one who wonders what sort of impact Lake’s behavior has had on his dental practice? I certainly don’t want to go to a dentist that acts like that. And why haven’t we had a non-elimination round yet? Are we just not having them this season?

Unan1mous…yes, I wasted my time with this again. I am such a loser.

Survivor…this is the only show that I watched during the week…I just couldn’t wait! And it was totally worth it. The reward challenge rocked…I really thought that Shane’s team would win after he bawled from seeing such a short clip of his son. Him and Cirie seemed to be the most motivated to see videos from home (and a great food reward to go with it). Just a guess that getting to diagnose Shane’s “problem” wasn’t how Cirie wanted to spend her afternoon! And can I just tell you how much I love Cirie? She will be nearly impossible to beat in the final two. What I didn’t like was the immunity challenge…it was absurd that the responsibility of beating Terry fell solely on the shoulders of Aras. And I really could have done without seeing Shane’s mouth full of cheeseburger. I’m sad (but not surprised) to see Sally go. Hopefully she’ll cause some trouble on the jury.

American Inventor…ok, I’ve been saying all along that my biggest problem with this show was that they never explained what the next rounds were. And now that I’ve watched the next round, I still don’t know. It just seemed like they wanted to hear the presentations one more time to decide who the top 12 were. Although I did like that it wasn’t dragged out – we went from 50 to 12 in one night. Thank goodness. There are a couple of the inventions/inventors I really like. I like the receiver’s training pole, the bathroom clip, and the word game. Hopefully they will all make it to market. Personally, I’m just hoping that I’ll understand the competition before the show is over.

Phew! Can you believe that I had time to watch baseball too? What a weekend...

It's Unan1mous...I just wasted 30 minutes...

For those of you who know me, this is going to come as a complete shock. But I really don’t have much to say about tonight’s episode of Unan1mous. Mostly because they really didn’t show us anything. It reminds me of watching a soap opera…you could miss a week (or two), turn the show on, and it’s like you didn’t miss anything at all. I had the show on tonight for the entire time, and I don’t think a single thing happened. Think about it…Kelly left in the first few minutes (which we knew was coming from last week), and that was it. The money continued to tick down, and the contestants are starting to lose it. I can’t believe I missed baseball for this…

With all the excitement of March Madness, I just got around to watching my tapes of Unan1mous and American Inventor. And not a moment too soon, I guess…since there are new episodes on already. We’ll start with Unan1mous...

From the moment it starts, you know that this is going to be quite a show – after all, the voice over is done by the same person that did the voice over for Paradise Hotel. And if you thought that Paradise Hotel messed with people’s minds, well, they have nothing on this show. So the basic premise is that they’ve locked nine people in a bunker where there are no windows, no clocks, just a strange purple light and no sense of time at all. There’s no outside contact – not even a host to stop by occasionally. Just a creepy voice in the bunker, and a host on a giant video screen (it’s actually J.D. Roth, who has been on lots of bad game shows and is a producer of the show). They’re told when to eat, when to sleep, and when to go to “the inner circle.” And they will be messed with more than any contestants have ever been messed with before.

The “game” itself seems simple – there is a $1.5 million prize, but to win it, the others will have vote to give it to them unanimously. Of course, it’s not that simple. First, if a contestant wants to leave they can. Except that when they leave, the prize money is cut in half. And when they don’t have a unanimous vote, there are “consequences.” All of a sudden, colored folders rise out of the table, and they contain the innermost secrets of the contestants. They are told to select three at random and read them aloud. Whichever secret they decide is the worst, that person will be identified and cast out of the game. Note to contestants – any reality show application that makes you write your innermost secret is probably not a show that you want to be on.

And there are characters on this show. There’s Kelly, the conservative Republican minister (who has forgotten that ministers are supposed to be kind to others). And Jameson, the gay activist. And my personal favorite, Jonathan, the “self-described womanizer” who is faking testicular cancer to try to get people’s votes.

Tonight’s episode started with more psychological games. The contestants decided that being in a mental institution was the worst secret, and Richard was “cast out” of the game. As if that weren’t enough, he has to wear the “outcast” outfit for the rest of his time, and he doesn’t get to go home. Oh no. He still has to stay and be a part of the voting. Now, while it might be in his best interest to vote along with the group (simply to get to go home), he could really mess with the game and vote for someone else just to get back at them.

Is anyone else at this point totally creeped out by the game? With the creepy voice, the creepy lighting, and the creepy redheaded guy, there’s something very odd about this show. I am just shocked that this made it past the best practices guys at the network. These contestants are going to need some serious counseling when it’s all done.

So, it’s time to vote (since the creepy voice told them to), and they have decided to give the money to Steve. They all realized that he deserved it, and voting for Steve gets them all out of the bunker. Of course, we had to know that someone would change their vote – otherwise the show would only be two episodes long. So we knew that someone was changing their vote – I was just surprised that it wasn’t Richard.

So Kelly wants out, and, of course, we won’t find out what happens until next week. At this pace (1-2 shows made out of each day in the bunker), they won’t last more than a week down there. Hopefully the show lasts longer than that…