MagneticMediaFed

I’m trying to adjust to a new work schedule and so my daily television regiment has been thrown for a loop. (Eight to five? Have to wear a tie? What kind of madness is this?) And since I currently don’t own an actual set and have to wait for content to be loaded online I’ve been at least a day behind on everything. That being said, I wanted to make sure I hit a few points before the weekend:

• Gossip Girl — OMFG. There are cliffhangers, and then there are CLIFFHANGERS. In a way I’m surprised this wasn’t the season finale, but I’m also completely relieved. Since the strike-break, this show has gone from being more or less awesome to unquestionably fantastic.
• Reaper — Speaking of a post-strike resurgence, this show has completely solved its problem with being wildly inconsistent (and sadly predictable) in terms of storytelling and it doesn’t hurt that its also funnier than its ever been.
• Top Chef — Love Stephaine. Love Richard (which is odd since I used to hate Richard… though I still find his hair objectionable on every level. Love Andrew. Like Spike. Like Antonia. Dale? Well Dale is in a gotsa-go situation. I mean Jesus Christ man, RELAX!
• 30 Rock — The Jack in Washington plot line was perhaps the funniest thing that show has ever done. (The rest of the episode wasn’t so bad either.) “It’s not a leak, you can see the report.”

Last week I said that Stephanie was pick to win this season’s Top Chef, a decision that I’m OK with even though I now realize it should probably be Spike, and not because he seems to have the best assortment of hats. Plus, when you see your pick sitting there on the chopping block you can’t help but feel a little squeamish.

But that is not what I wanted to say this week. No, I wanted to take this particular post to say — for the record — that I HATE Lisa. I hate her stupid eyebrow ring. I hate her Complainy McComplainerson disposition. I hate how dismissive she was of Polish Sausage. I’m sorry, but this is the way I feel.

It should also be noted that I no longer hate Richard because despite his obvious superiority to everyone else in the competition and his desire to often remind us of all of this you have to kind of like a guy who is willing to do a bad Seinfeld impression. Right? Well, maybe. Still, he isn’t as bad as Lisa. She has GOT to go.

Last, I want to let it be known that this week’s episode might be in my top five. It seemed to have everything: twists, turns, deadpan line readings by the Kiwi, more than one team that excelled and teams on the bottom that were equally at fault but for completely different reasons. All that was missing was a Tony Bourdain guest-spot and some general inter-group screaming.

Alright, enough with the dancing about. Let’s draw some lines in the sand. But before we do that an quick observation: Ryan is one cheesy mother-scratcher, and I’m thrilled (though shocked) that he got the boot this week (especially given the massive fumbles by both our Hobbit-looking Australian friend and Nikki. Luckily, none of those three are my dog, to borrow a phrase from the once rotund Randy Jackson.

The way I see it, the best chefs are Spike, Richard, Andrew, Stephanie and Dale, with Andrew being far and away the most fun to watch on screen because you always get the feeling he’s one forgotten Ritalin away from the nut house (or at the very least detention somewhere). My favorite Andrewism is when one of the judges criticizes his food and he immediately gets this look of complete puzzlement and then cocks his head slightly to the right while tapping his lips with his index finger as if to say, “Ah, what you are proposing I was not aware of, though I could see how something like that could certainly be the case.” I love it. That being said, Andrew is not getting the full-fledged MMF-endorsement. No, that distinction goes to another. Find out who after the break…

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BLEEP

As you may or may not know, I love Top Chef. This is of little surprise. Somewhat ironically, Top Chef itself has become a show of little surprise. Like all reality fare, you can set your watch to Top Chef. Milling about. Guest judge. Quickfire. Elimination. Faux-drama. Serving. Actual drama. Judges table. Winners. Losers. That’s the show every week and I love it.

This week something different happened, and I’m curious if anyone else thought it was odd. In every season there is that point where the contestants start getting familiar with one another then start screaming at one another. Usually this happens during the meat of the episode — maybe while buying supplies at the grocer or something. This week the episode was ostensibly over. The winner was announced and the loser was told by the Preposterously Hotâ„¢ Padma Lakshmi to pack their knives and go. Credits should have rolled, but they didn’t and there was still two minutes left in the broadcast.

Cue: screaming. Spike yells at Antonia. Dale yells at Lisa. Jennifer yells at someone (honestly the whole thing was cut together so haphazard it was hard to tell where the bleeping was supposed to be directed). There was no music and it wasn’t part of the “coming up” — don’t get me wrong, I loved it. It was just oddly placed.

I don’t have a lot to say about the current season of Top Chef as we’re still in that awkward stage when there are far too many contestants to get attached to any one in particular (unless we’re talking about Andrew, who I see as a *slightly* more profane version of myself, except that he can apparently, y’know, cook), but I absolutely had to use this screen-grab of the preposterously hot Padma Lakshmi.

As for the show itself I do feel like we’re in for a potentially great season as the cast has a hellova lot going for it (and Chicago just strikes me as a better food city than Miami). For starters the producers seem to have cast not just one token asshole, but several. I guess I shouldn’t say “asshole” but instead “super-competitive.” My favorite characters to root against are the ones who get overly into the whole “I’m better than you so get the frak out of my way” game show mentality. Let’s think about this. If the show is essentially a series about picking the head of a new restaurant its really much more about finding someone who you’d actually want to work for than just whoever can cook the best tartare. So yeah, there are a lot of them. As we start burning through contestants I suspect that things will really amp up in the drama department (which I felt was missing from much of last season).

And of course there’s Padma, and the increasingly likelihood of Chef Tom wearing a beret.