episodes: random TV selection

Design Star: Finally, Tracee is gone. Now to her credit, she did a fantastic deal with countertops... having a company come out and measure then cut the granite (laminate?) all within hours. But why couldn't she buy the backsplash tile for the kitchen in under an hour? No, she had to shop for seven hours on their busiest day, and they didn't even have time to put up the tile she had bought. She went to seven places to buy... accessories? How she lasted this long, I'll never know. Well, I do know. The producers wanted to keep her on as the antagonist. So now who's left... Trish, Matt, and Jen (see picture above). I think that Matt is the most informative and the most creative, and Trish is a little perky and she's an older version of a sorority girl. I like Jen's personality the best, but I don't remember any of her designs that well. Next week, the remaining three contestants are designing rooms for their families, which seems like a lame challenge that should have been earlier.


America's Best Dance Crew: Holy crap, Fanny Pak had an 80s Prom theme. In the history of this show (which has only been one and a half seasons, but still), their dance routine was the best execution of story-telling. The stereotypical "rocker chick" is jealous of the prom queen and so she poisons the punch, and the dancers go into a fast-forward epileptic dance craze. It was so awesome. Not to mention the white boy badonkadonk bump. Also this week, I liked A.S.I.I.D. for the first time, although I really wish they would stop mentioning the deaf dancer because it only emphasizes his disability when I think he has proved himself -- every single week -- that his disability does not make him disabled.


Secret Life of an American Teenager: I stumbled upon this accidentally (I was hoping for Whose Line Is It Anyway?), and boy am I glad I watched it. I can now officially say that I have seen the worst television show ever made. There's just so much to dislike. The Christian overtones are ridiculously blatant -- the nerdy kid's mother died when he was five, the popular boy lives in a foster home, the really hot cheerleader is a big Christian who gets a promise ring in the first episode. I don't know where this high school exists, but it does not belong to an American teenager. This one boy (I don't even care enough to look up his name) is having issues about withheld sex from his promise-ringed-hottie girlfriend. Her father says that all boys want one thing, and the boy responds, "Aren't we all Christians here? I'm just asking for forgiveness!" Who wrote this? And while we're talking about dialogue, the nerdy kid -- the one we're supposed to be rooting for -- is fourteen going on thirty going on six. He is not a consistent character at all. He's in tune with the world and wise beyond his years, but only sometimes. He even has a conversation with himself about how "time goes slower when you're a kid" but now it's moving faster for him, "so maybe I'm maturing." And then he calls a girl -- the lead pregnant girl -- and says he loves her.

Nerdy boy: I love you. (awkward pause) No need to reciprocate.
Girl: We only had one date. (contemplative pause) Okay, I love you too.

WTF?!? And the acting is exceptionally horrible. I tend to blame bad acting on the director and the editing, but here, it really is the inexperienced actors. (Even Molly Ringwald has forgotten how to act. But did she really ever know how...?) The only decent interaction -- between ANY characters -- is between the nerdy kid and the school counselor, who is probably only twenty-two in real life. They have actual conversations that I can picture friends having, which leaves me with the question, why does nerdy kid speak normally around his counselor and not his own friends? And why is the counselor so casual and sarcastic to his students? He'd be fired. Officially. Worst. Show. Ever.

By the way... I'm really excited about Hector Elizondo joining the cast of Monk as the title character's new therapist. His looks are priceless.