Well so much for my prediction that Marissa was going to win The Glee Project in my previous post – she was promptly eliminated! It is quite shameful how hooked I am on this show – the very reason reality shows are so popular is that they are designed to get you addicted. The crack cocaine of TV! However, the show is endlessly frustrating for many reasons, chiefly the elimination decisions.
Ryan Murphy changes his mind from week to week what will make him keep someone on the show. (Guess this attitude explains a lot about Glee and its often schizophrenic leaping from plot to plot.) The theme of the show was Believability, but of the final three, both Lindsay and Samuel were much less believable and honest than the lovely Hannah, who I really grew to really like on the show. Her smile and on screen charisma in the musical numbers have been great. However, she wasn’t that strong in the video and her last chance song was very poor. It didn’t showcase her talent at all, whereas Lindsay got ‘Maybe This Time’, which was perfect for her excellent voice.
I am really torn over Lindsay. On the one hand, she is amazingly bitchy, manipulative and obnoxious – I really do think she is the secret love child of Quinn Fabray and Rachel Berry!! She has Quinn’s back stabbing bitchiness, and Rachel’s drive, singing talent but also her sheer slap-ability! On the other hand, while so many of the other kids look like the kids they are, she is very professional, very beautiful and I think has the acting talent that I’m not sure any of the others do. But she really has come across as fake on The Glee Project. Nikki called her on it this week – she faked up those tears because Alex had cried just before. Of course, they may decide that having a new character played by someone most of the Glee Project audience can’t stand will spice things up?
Samuel was one of the favourites for me, but the last couple of weeks he has come across as much less interesting. I particularly disliked his ‘I love Jesus too’ thing to Ryan Murphy when he was going on AGAIN about having a Christian character on the show. HELLO Ryan – Quinn! Grilled Cheesus!
Alex and Damian were safe from the final three this week – my two least favourite concestants. Damian is just too reliant on his Irish charm (plus they can’t possibly subtitle him on Glee, and he cannot act!) Alex is a great performer. Loved his ‘True Colours’ and ‘Only Exception’, but he is the love child of Mercedes and Kurt (lots of love children this week!) and I’m not sure how he would work on the show. Television Without Pity has a funny little feature here on possible storylines, that have Alex as Mercedes’ long lost twin brother. Like it!
So with Lindsay, Alex, Damian and Samuel left, you have to think Lindsay as the only girl will make the final three. Of the boys, I would LIKE Damian to go next, but Alex is pretty obnoxious too – which probably means Samuel might go. Trying to predict this show is a waste of time really, in fact I really am not especially rooting for any one of them. Despite her not very likeable personality, I’ll pick Lindsay to win but I still think Samuel might (or Damian. And maybe Alex!!)
In other TV…
Warehouse 13 is having a good new season. The ever lovely Jeri Ryan popped up last week (and her Voyager captain Kate Mulgrew is appearing soon too!) and the show continues to be likeable and engaging.
Haven is another show that has returned quite strongly – and another X Files type show (like Warehouse 13). The first few episodes of this second season have kept me interested.
Also improved from last year, Covert Affairs is finding its feet, and the idea that Annie might tell her sister she is in the CIA is one that excites me as I adore Anne Dudek (ah, Cut Throat Bitch on House, I still miss you!) and I so want her to have something to do!
Rizzoli and Isles is one of the favourites and I liked that the show was not afraid to try something different this week with an incredibly dark and serious case about child abduction. The show is usually frothy fun, but handled the heavier stuff well.
Burn Notice is about to drop off my list of shows to watch as the repetitive scam of the week caper is wearing thin once again. Sharon Gless has been sent back to her ashtray and armchair and I just want to punch Jeffrey Donovan!
I dropped White Collar last year, but it has been more engaging this season. I like that we have more than just Peter, Neil and Mozzy these days and while the capers of the week are similar to Burn Notice (but with less explosions) and Neil is ALMOST as cocky as Michael Weston, White Collar has been more enjoyable for me.
Torchwood: Miracle Day is a bit of a curate’s egg. It’s central premise – that while no one dying any more sounds wonderful, the reality is incredibly grim – is great, but we are halfway through the season and we’ve only just got to the the incinerators! It has moved too slowly for me. Also, I can’t stand Rex and Bill Pullman’s character is a total mystery. It makes no sense at all that a convicted child killer would be listened to by anyone.
However, there are some great bits. I like the really twisted stuff like Mare Winningham’s Sarah Palin-esque politician being crushed into a cube in her car and us zooming in to see her eye glancing around still. Which reminds me of my childhood horror film nightmare. A snoozing babysitter meant I watched a ‘Tales from the Crypt’ film years ago, one segment of which gave me nightmares for YEARS! A wife (I think) wanted her dead husband back and somehow or other manages to wish him alive again. However, when he returns to life, he is in agony from the car crash that killed him and just screams and screams horribly. She can’t shut him up and ends up getting an axe and chopping him into little pieces, all the while the body parts still wiggling and screaming. Pretty much what Miracle Day does – but thankfully I’m old enough to cope now!
I think Children of Earth was pretty much a masterpiece because 5 episodes/hours was the perfect time to tell a story with a proper beginning/middle/end. This season is 10 episodes and it is probably half as good as it is too meandering.
UK show The Hour is not quite gripping me yet. Set in the 1950s, it stars Romola Garai, one of my very favourite actresses and Ben Wishaw who might be talented, but always plays arrogant pricks! Wanted to slap him as Sebastian in the lame Brideshead Revisited film a few years back. The show is stylish but a tad slow.
Finally, a new show. Against the Wall is a cop show starring a girl who looks like the love child of Meg Ryan and Nicole Kidman (yep, I love my love children!) Don’t know her name, but she plays a Internal Affairs cop whose large family as all cops too and don’t take kindly to her new post. It’s fairly standard US cop fair, but quite enjoyable.