The Jersey Shore Season Two - Love Is A Battlefield

Illustrations courtesy of Alan Gray

The saga of Sammi and Ronnie continues as the strain of Ronnie’s outrageous partying wears on Sammi and the annoyance of Sammi’s constant petting of her polyester hair frustrates Ronnie.  Meanwhile, Snooki and Jenni implement an ingenious (or insane) plan to deal with a devious housemate. 

This week’s episode of ‘Macaroni Rascals’ was frankly, a bit of a snooze.  The slow creaking ascent of the Sammi/Ronnie relationship rollercoaster is taking too long to reach the tipping point.  Send it over the edge already!  Anyway, so what did happen this week?  Well, back home after another epic night out, Snooki decides to call boyfriend Emilio, as they haven’t spoken in two whole days.  However, absence clearly does not make the heart grow fonder for Emilio. He’s still out partying and doesn’t want to be distracted from leering at "half naked girls" and hangs up on Snooki.  An incensed Snooki cries to JWOWW and Sammi, although why she’s acting so slighted I’m not quite sure.  Didn’t she do the dirty on her boyfriend last week with Vinny?  Before Snooki can even finish her tale of woe, Sammi is asking the girls their opinion of her ongoing dramas with Ronnie.  She urges the girls to tell her if there’s anything she should know about her meathead with the wandering eye.  Jenni and Snooki exchange fearful furtive glances but keep quiet.  No one wants to be the bearer of this particular piece of bad news. 

Project Runway Episode Three - Gone With The Window Treatments

Illustrations courtesy of Alan Gray

There’s frustration and disappointment in the Parsons workroom this week as the designers take on their first team challenge.  Ping discovers that her unorthodox methods make working with another designer the biggest challenge of all and Seth Aaron and Anthony can’t decide if they’re making a dress for the plantation or the fast food nation.
The challenge this week is to design a signature look, drawing inspiration from 10 iconic pieces by famous designers such as Balenciaga and Dior.  The designers get up close and personal with the hautest of couture at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Tim gets all emotional at being in the presence of his only true loves.  

This will be the first team challenge and they will have $500 to spend - the largest budget in the history of Project Runway, and a leisurely two days to complete.  Tim randomly selects team leaders from his marble bag and the chosen few get to pick who they want to work with.  Jesse is one of the last left and doesn’t want Ping to pick him.  When she does he can’t hide his disdain and looks as if he’s just been told he’s going to have his testicles removed with pinking shears.  Would it kill him to muster a little false enthusiasm?  So much for his acting skills!

Jersey Shore Season Two Episode Three: Creepin'

Illustrations courtesy of Alan Gray

This weeks episode was all about conflict; ongoing romantic conflict between Sammi and Ronnie, conflict between Angelina and everyone else in the house, and conflicts between the boys libidos and their brains - resulting in some unsavory bath time companions for our sexually indiscriminate guidos.

Following on from last week, Angelina continues her stage-five-clinger (in Jersey Shore parlance) behaviour and continues to harass DJ Pauly D, taking him to task for hitting on a girl who purportedly had a boyfriend.  JWOWW is awoken by the commotion and is surprised to find Pauly, ‘the nicest kid in the house’, screeching at Trash Bags to leave him alone in the wake of being repeatedly slapped by her.  In the very next instant she denies ever touching him and Mike and Pauly’s eyes almost explode out of their heads in shock at her denial of something they just witnessed.  

The next day, Angelina is persona non grata in the house and pretends to have no memory of the night before.  She needs to find a new excuse, we didn’t believe it last week from Ronnie and it’s certainly not holding any water this week. She makes a teary apology to Pauly but he tells her she can’t hang out with him anymore.  She asks if she can have a ‘get out of jail free card’ for this transgression but Pauly is having none of it.  I think the guys are probably glad that they have this opportunity to legitimately ditch her.

New Zealand's Next Top Model - Week Eight

Illustration courtesy of Alan Gray

Who needs to go out on a Friday night anymore?  All the drama, excitement and Colin Mathura-Jeffree you could ever want awaits you on your magic picture box!  

As seems to be the trend, the episode opens with the models targeting one girl to be the object of their derision.  This week it’s Lara’s voodoo doll that must feel the needles of their disdain.  Danielle thinks Lara’s a self-horn honking twit and Dakota says Lara “thinks she’s got it all, but she’s got nothing”.   In whose direction will the wheel of misfortune spin next week?
Saramail: Say your prayers girls, you’re about to worship at the altar of fashion!  Love Sara

What?  No XOXO from Sara?  That’s cold.  The twins LOVE trying to decipher the Saramail clues but are invariably wrong.  They’re just like the Hardy Boys, only not as handsome or accurate.  They set off in their stagecoach to St Matthews In The City church for their first challenge.  Wouldn’t it be great if Xzibit pimped their ride?  (‘Yo Dawgs, I heard you like modeling so I got you this stereo system made out of nude g-strings and Naomi Campbell’s weave’).  Father Colin greets them from the pulpit and tells his congregation that today they will be modeling Lonely Hearts lingerie.  Courtney is slightly horrified at the idea of stripping down to her undies “in a holy place”.  Dakota says wearing lingerie in a church made her “feel a bit sacrilegious” but then she thought “nah who cares”.  Simultaneously, all around the country cups of tea are involuntarily expelled through nostrils.

New Zealand's Next Top Model - Week Seven

Illustrations courtesy of Alan Gray

We’re down to eight models remaining after last week’s shock elimination, and this week it’s back to school as the girls get a refresher in the basics and learn the ancient history of their rare kind.

Saramail: And then there were 8.  Maybe it’s time we got back to basics? Love Sara

The girls board their glamour bus for Auckland University where Colin guides them through some runway training 101.   They start off their training in flats and Danielle finally masters the art of the walk, saying the one on one time with Colin made her more comfortable. They graduate to medium height ‘training wheels’ heels which are a bit more problematic for Danielle, she flips them off mid-strut and nails poor Elza in the back of the head.  Despite her assault with a deadly weapon (stiletto is Italian for dagger), Danielle is no longer the worst walker of the pack!  That dubious honour belongs to Dakota who Colin says can’t turn left or right due to her “lack of body strength”.  Poor Dakota, she has bigger problems than Derek Zoolander, at least his only Achilles heel was his left turn.

Project Runway - The Runway Gets Cheeky

Illustrations courtesy of Alan Gray

Last night’s Project Runway was all about butts and burlap.  Bulging bottoms were squeezed into coarse cladding, fleshy cheeks peeked beneath hairy hessian, and a disproportionate derriere rocked the runway.   BUTT WAIT, THERE’S MORE…..

First of all, why did TV3 have to inflict the predominantly unfunny Aotearoahaha on us, pushing our beloved Runway back by 25 cruel minutes?  TV3, I’ve got a fist to shake at you.  Now on to the runway!

The challenge this week is to prove the old adage that ‘a beautiful woman could look good in anything, even a potato sack’, by creating a “party worthy look” out of a burlap sack (that scratchy sacking fabric we know more commonly as hessian). The designers descend upon a field where their models are already decked out in their sacks, the square edges of which resemble Dynasty style shoulder pads.  Alexis and Krystal would have had a fine old time mud wrestling in that swampy paddock.  

This week, the models will serve as the clients and get to choose which designer they want to work with. Part time Wiccan and full time crazy eyed person Alexis rejects her original designer Mila in favour of Anthony, which fills Mila with the kind of haughty rage only a severely bobbed woman can muster.   Ooh you better watch out Alexis, all the amulets in the netherworlds can’t save you from Mila’s razor sharp fringe.  She will slice you in twain!   Although poor Anthony is none too thrilled with Alexis picking him, her unnerving intensity and her apparent inability to blink is rather unsettling, for him and us.  

New Zealand's Next Top Model - Tune In This Week.....

Illustration courtesy of Alan Gray

New Zealand's Next Top Models Up In Smoke

Illustration courtesy of Alan Gray

Another day, another Top Model scandal, although this one is so mild it could hardly be considered a scandal, but where there’s smoke there’s always fire.

The Herald on Sunday reports this morning that Holly Potton and Danielle Hayes, contestants on “New Zealand’s Next Top Model” were spied smoking at an Auckland bar the night after the ‘Not Our Future’ anti-smoking campaign challenge.  The task involved the girls posing for anti-smoking campaign posters and contributing their own comments on the negative effects of smoking.

When we consider that 26% of the population aged between 15 and 24 are smokers, it’s hardly surprising that we would have a few nicotine heads in the household.  Watching the show on Friday night we wondered perhaps if Holly and Danielle were smokers as they’re often shown sitting outside with their morning coffee, perhaps having a sneaky puff?  Enjoying the winter sunshine?  Or just trying to avoid their castmates?  Although “New Zealand’s Next Top Model” network executive, Andrew Szusterman, said: "We're disappointed. However, these girls are adults, who choose what they do in their own time."  

Women have used tobacco as an appetite suppressant since time immemorial and the unpleasant practise of smoking has always been prevalent amongst young image conscious women.  Ultimately the negative effects of smoking will outweigh any miniscule effect it has on controlling your weight.  Most smokers are of course aware of this but once nicotine has a hold it can be hard to break free.  

Health Sponsorship Council Smokefree NZ manager Susie Robertson acknowledged that some of the celebrities featured in the high profile campaign are in fact smokers.  The testimony of smokers has the potential to be more powerful than that of non-smokers as it highlights the struggle that smokers go through, reconciling the damage they are doing to their own bodies and their inability to give up a dangerous habit.   Hopefully, their experiences can perhaps deter young people from ever picking up a ‘death stick’. 

When we expect perfection from our public figures you can ensure that disappointment will soon follow.  Let’s accept that the girls are human and fallible, and that their behaviour doesn’t necessarily have to stop them from being “New Zealand’s Next Top Role Models”.

So is it all a big stink over nothing?  Pretty much.  

New Zealand's Next Top Model Week Six

Illustrations courtesy of Alan Gray

Is it really week six of New Zealand’s Next Top Model?  Why, it seems just like yesterday, or 42 days ago, that we were introduced to our cycle two contestants and now we face another elimination.  The glittering promo this week said this would be the most shocking elimination yet, but could this be the one time they’re actually telling the truth and it really is a shock to our delicate systems? 

As each week passes, the placement of Saramail seems to get more and more sadistic.  This time it’s floating on a pillow in their watery moat and Elza leaps in to it’s rescue.  It reads, “A top model needs to shape up or ship out.”  This can only mean one of two things, and since we’ve already had makeovers it must be time for workovers.  The girls are eating Tim Tam straws (the delectable treat where you bite off both ends up and suck up your hot beverage of choice, although beef tea is not recommended) when Sara arrives with a young man that all the girls, but particularly Dakota, admire intently.  Sara says she’s there to talk to them about body image and introduces them to her personal trainer, Brad Werner who will assess them and help them devise a fitness and nutrition plan for their individual needs. Dakota describes Brad as “the hottest muffin out of the oven”.  Bleeurgh, she must have been a mustachioed grease ball with a gold medallion nestling in her chest hair in a past life.   Dakota is enjoying her assessment with Brad a little too much (except for the dreaded fat pinch test), even asking if his girlfriend knows he’s hanging out with all these models.   He deadpans that she doesn’t care, because she’s a model herself.  Shot down Dakota!  She tells him he’s quite attractive and he should consider modeling.  Eww, someone alert sexual harassment panda please. 

Let’s Make It Work People!

Illustration courtesy of Alan Gray

A perennial favourite, Project Runway reappears tonight at 9.30Pm on TV3 for it’s seventh season.  Patron saint of the pocket square Tim Gunn returns to mentor 16 designers competing for a cash prize of $100,000 to start his or her own line.  Heidi Klum is back as host and fashion pixie Nicole Richie will guest judge on tonight’s episode. 

The Jersey Shore Season Two Premiere Episode

Illustration courtesy of Alan Gray

Is everyone seated?  Do we all have our wrist support bandages on for fist pumping action?  Are your grimy orange tans carefully streaked? Because it’s time to get crazy, get wild with the filthy creepers of the Jersey Shore.  Our East Coast snowbirds have relocated to Miami for another summer of the show we all love to mock.  Whatever will they get up to this season?

Last time we saw the Jersey Shore cast, Ronnie and Sammi were deep in lurve but they barely made it to their rhinestone anniversary (three months) when the bottom dropped out of their romance.  Now they’re going to be reunited on the shores of Miami.  Awkward!  Snooki is done ‘snookin for love’ and has found an ‘amazing gorilla juicehead’ (feel free to consult your J-Shore glossary right about now) in Emilio.  She says she really doesn’t want to cheat on him while she’s away but it’s said in the tone of someone who knows they really shouldn’t have that last drink, but is going to do it anyway.   Emilio doubles as Snooki’s beautician, helping her apply her tan by spraying her with what looks like a pot of percolated coffee.  Snooki explains she has had to resort to home tanning as President Barack Obama has imposed a tax on her beloved sun bed, and she’s convinced he did it because of the Jersey Shore crew.  It’s only a 10% hike, I’m sure she has the dough to cover it nowadays!  She reveals her political affiliations by saying that John McCain would never put a tax on tanning as he’s pale and would probably want to be tan (doesn’t seem to be the case, has she seen his wife?  She’s almost transparent!) and that Obama ‘doesn’t have that problem, obviously’.  Oh so the President taxed tanning out of spite?  Of course, that makes perfect sense Snooki!  McCain backed up her hair-brained comments by tweeting that he would never tan taxing.  Guess he’s got the Guido vote sewn up then. 

The housemates’ get on the road to reach their new home in Miami.   DJ Pauly D stops off to pick up The Situation so they can go road tripping together and Snooki collects  J-WOWW and her rucksack full of bronzer.  Snooki and JWOWW and Pauly and Mike are vying for first place in the house so they can get dibs on bedrooms.  Pauly and Mike speculate whether Angelina aka ‘Jolie’ will turn up and Pauly confesses that he and Angelina had a recent rendezvous.  Angelina is en route solo; she’s excited about returning to the house and having a second chance at her fifteen minutes of fame.  She says the girls in the house were all jealous of her, but she doesn’t elaborate on the root of their jealousy.  Her illustrious bartending career perhaps?

Back for More 'Jersey Shore'

Illustration courtesy of Alan Gray

Jersey Shore returns for it’s second season to MTV tonight at 9.30 for a special hour long premiere.  Oh how we’ve missed the gang and their hilarious antics.  Remember when J-WOWW said she loved ham AND water?  Or when The Situation tried to seduce every vaguely woman-shaped person that crossed his path?  If that spa pool could talk…(shudder)……it would probably have a promising career writing letters to Penthouse. 

The whole J-Shore house, consisting of DJ Pauly D (and presumably his stock pile of hair gel), snooze-fest Vinnie, greasy egotist The Situation, loveable pickle-licker Snooki, co-dependent couple Ronnie and Sammi (who are entering the house single, let’s see how long that lasts), concrete mammaried J-WOWW and the grotesque Angelina flee the harsh winter of the East Coast for the warmer climes of Miami.  Angelina, who goes by the self-ascribed nickname ‘Jolie’ (titter) has been brought back to wreak havoc on the friends.  You might remember she only lasted three episodes in the first season before storming off.  She didn’t want to work in the t-shirt store with the rest of the cast as she was a bartender, and bartenders do ‘great things’.  She is really overstating the importance of popping the top off a Corona. 

The Jersey Shore reunion will air at 8.30PM prior to the season two premiere so you can reacquaint yourself with the tears, tantrums and tan lines of the housemates.  We will be watching with lashings of Ron Ron Juice at the ready.  Will you?

The Jersey Shore Reunion

MTV 8.30PM 7th September

Jersey Shore Season 2

MTV 9.30PM 7th September

MasterChef USA Episode Two

This week, auditions continue to find the final contestants for the first ever season of MasterChef USA.  Is a new meanie emerging on the judge’s panel, one that can perhaps even eclipse Gordon Ramsay’s famed foul-mouthed attitude?  The cruel bird-like eyes of chilly gastronome Joe Bastianich may prove more fearsome for our home cooks than any of Gordon’s shouty rants.

It’s the second part of the audition process to find the final 30 contestants who will compete for the title of the first MasterChef USA.  Gordon says that the winner will receive $250,000.00 and will ‘sear their name in culinary history’.  The first part of that statement is true, but the second part is deeply questionable. 

A number of the contestants, like Jamaican born Tamar, make the mistake of trying to present their dish ‘restaurant style’, when all the judges are interested in is their raw cooking talent.  Gordon tells Tamar her dish looks better in the pot than her attempt at haute cuisine style presentation.  Despite his criticisms he says yes to Tamar’s curry and is surprised when his co-judges, chef Graham Elliot and restauranteur Joe Bastianich disagree with his assessment and deprive Tamar of a MasterChef apron.  Gordon gently bullies Graham into reconsidering his decision and when Graham relents, Gordon tells him ‘if you’ve got any balls you’ll go give her an apron’.  A sheepish Graham heads out to the waiting area and gifts a sobbing Tamar with her apron and gets a hug from Gordon for having the chutzpah to admit his mistake. Although, I think Gordon’s championing of Tamar has more to do with his wounded pride that the panel didn’t agree with him than his true belief in her cooking abilities.

New Zealand's Next Top Model Week Five

Illustration courtesy of Alan Gray

This week the girls mourn the surprise loss of Aafreen (we were surprised too!), enjoy ogling Dan Carter and are forced to walk the streets offering free styling tips and squirts of hair product.  Dakota is not amused, but we certainly are!

Holly is stunned that she dodged a bullet last week and had a reprieve from the chopping block, as is most of the country (and Lara, who thought Holly was destined for the boot too).  Is she still here just so she can turn the blood in our veins to ice with her permafrost glare?  Holly is inflicting her OCD tendencies on the rest of the house and she and Danielle have made a cleaning roster where one of the tasks is ‘vacuming’ and there are punishments assigned for failing to comply.  Courtenay thinks the roster is stupid and resents having to listen to orders from a fellow contestant. 

The girls are still in shock at Aafreen leaving but soon bounce back when Sara arrives with All Black and Jockey pin up Dan Carter.  The girls sit down for a question and answer session with Dan about being in the media spotlight and the modelling world.  Nellie or (Elza?) confesses she is star struck and seems to be temporarily rendered speechless.  Lara tells the girls that there is Jockey poster of him in their sick room at school, which scores her a high five from Elza (or Nellie?  Why didn’t they give one of them a Mohawk so we can tell them apart?).  Afterwards, Sara consults with Dan as to which girl made the best impression on him, using Polaroids she sneakily took beforehand as means of identification.  Dan says he found Lara too reserved and Amelia too distant; she failed to speak once.  Dan spies Eva on the end of the sofa and is 'impressed with the way she looked’.  Dan tells the girls that Eva was the winner of the challenge and will be the first new face on the Water For Everyone brand.  If you’ve seen the Water For Everyone brand you’ll know that the label is not exactly flash, which I’m sure is part of their ethos of keeping costs down and making bottled water affordable.  However, it doesn’t exactly translate well into a good photo for a model’s portfolio.  Eva’s blobby blue silhouette on her bottle looks like it could be anybody. 

Appointment Viewing for Aspiring Singers and Sous Chefs

Illustration courtesy of Alan Gray

Top Chef

Top Chef returns this Saturday following a month’s absence for ‘poor viewership’, according to TV3.  When the seventh season of Top Chef, set in Washington DC, first started airing here in July we were just four weeks behind American audiences, but now we’re really bringing up the rear with only three more episodes set to screen in the U.S. before the winner is revealed.  TV3 will continue the season starting with episode 4.  TV3 originally said they would bring Top Chef back later in the year, was it always their intention to bring it back now or did the legion of angry Top Chef fans on their message boards hasten it’s reappearance?