The Race 2 is a production of ICTV that’s structured similarly to The Amazing Race. Watch The Race 2 online.

In episode 1, we were introduced to the teams. Dave & Matt are one of the better racing duos I’ve seen, and their ability to be funny in the process helps make them likeable even when they’re being cutthroat, though that won’t buy them many friends on the race. Kristiyan & Nick decided they hated Dave & Matt’s guts and other internal organs. Behind them, there were a few middle of the road teams, followed by two horrible teams, one of which was the first boot: Nick & Chris.

That sets up episode 2 with 7 teams left. Teams leave for their next destination, Gary’s U-Pull It in Kirkwood, in the order in which they arrived at the pitstop:

First: Dave & Matt
Second: Kristiyan & Nick
Third: Jon & Jenna
Fourth: Sadie & Ginalola
Fifth: Hal & Matilda
Sixth: Daniel & Jeff
Seventh: Drew & Vanessa

Dave & Matt pick up where they left off and are apparently the kind of drivers who consider the sidewalk to be a passing lane. Kristiyan and Nick also pick up where they left off, as Nick calls the police and inquires about the process of reporting a littering violation. Are these guys for real? The cops refuse to help because it’s a frivolous complaint.

When Dave & Matt get to the challenge, they grab some paint and hair and proceed to stick it to the other people’s clues, a move that will surely draw more animosity from the others. Teams must find three car parts in a junkyard. Sadie & Ginalola show up about 1 part behind, followed by Jon & Jenna an additional part behind. Hal & Matilda show up in fourth as Dave & Matt are leaving, followed by Daniel & Jeff. Kristiyan & Nick got a bit lost and show up as Dave & Matt are driving away, and Drew & Vanessa are right behind. So it’s a pretty tight race at this point. About half the teams are able to get assistance from a young kid eager to help, which may put the teams that got there after at a disadvantage. Hal & Matilda lose the most time on this task and leave in last place.

From there, teams must return to Binghamton. The challenge there is to go to shops on Antiques Row and identify the most valuable items in display cases at each store, then visit a historian to verify their selections. They must keep going until they pick the correct items. On the way to the store, Kristiyan realizes that worrying about the other team is silly and hindering them. When they get to one of the shops, they block someone in intentionally, a smart move, but exactly the type of move they’ve been complaining about.

Jon & Jenna are correct on their second visit to the historian and take the lead. Dave & Matt are immediately behind on their third visit. Sadie & Ginalola finally get it on their fourth try. Daniel & Jeff are correct on their second try, as are Drew & Vanessa and Hal & Matilda. Kristiyan & Nick are bringing up the rear and get it on their third visit.

Teams must then go to the Court St bridge, where they’re given the task of convincing three strangers on the street to trade shoelaces with them. Dave & Matt come up with the idea of paying people a couple bucks to get them to cooperate. Probably not necessary, but it will save them a bit of time. Though they then realize they don’t actually have the money to pay, so they take off. Once the first two teams are done, it starts raining. The rain doesn’t last long but does have the potential to make it more difficult since everything’s wet.

The pitstop is Park Diner in Binghamton.

First: Jon & Jenna
Second: Dave & Matt
Third: Ginalola & Sadie
Fourth: Drew & Vanessa
Fifth: Daniel & Jeff
Sixth: Hal & Matilda
Seventh: Kristiyan & Nick (eliminated)

Kristiyan & Nick went from second to last. I do think they expended way too much energy worrying about Dave & Matt that necessary. Drew & Vanessa pulled it together and performed a lot better than I’d expected. It still looks like a three horse race between the frontrunners, though.

Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another recap of The Race 2 episode 3, which airs Wednesday at 9:30/8:30c on ICTV and via live webstream, with the video on demand version available on Thursday.

In Survivor: China episode 1, Todd started scheming already, James didn’t say much but pushed over some trees, and Chicken overplayed the ignorant card (or was he just being himself?) and earned a quick boot because of it. Will this week’s elimination be that easy to choose? Stick around for another live blog to find out.

Dave jumps right into his leadership role when they get back to camp. His problem is he takes it a bit too aggressively, which is when it becomes problematic. Peih-Gee wanting to be the leader doesn’t help matters any.

Todd and Amanda make an alliance… at least until the merge she says. They decide to pull Aaron in because he’s strong and a leader so they have a target to deflect off if anyone starts blaming someone.

While everybody else is working, Jean-Robert is sleeping, and sleeping some more. He believes he can act lazy and get away with it so that people are impressed when he starts working later. Alienating the whole tribe this early is a bad idea no matter how you justify it.

Jaime tries to get Dave to let her build a small fire to cook some rice. He says no. The rest of the girls quickly rally behind her. Jaime was polite and just walked away, but Ashley gives him a piece of her mind.

Heading into the reward challenge, Jeff tells them to prepare to get dirty. Giant balls will be released into a mud pit and must be pushed across a goal. The reward will be fishing gear, a fishing boat, and one other twist to be revealed later. Fei Long must sit out one guy, and Todd is the pick. Aaron has a free run to the goal, until Probst mentions it. Aaron’s got no problem wrestling with the women. Eventually, the strategy evolves to pulling people’s clothes off. A dirty and topless Amanda ends up scoring the first point for Fei Long. James and Jean-Robert do a great job of being a team in the second matchup and take the win 2-0.

Then the twist is revealed. No more Exile Island (finally). Instead, the winner gets to kidnap a member of the other tribe until the next immunity challenge. Fei Long wants Jaime. She gets something that she must open and read in private when she gets to their beach.

When Zhan Hu gets back to camp, they find it under water. Dave takes this as a sign that his idea to build a pit instead of a fire was good.

Fei Long picked Jaime in an effort to demoralize the other tribe because she seems like a happy person. When she opens the note, it forces her to give the clue to a hidden immunity idol (which she can’t read) to a member of the Fei Long tribe. Interesting. Could either be dangerous or really good. But I’ve gotta say this. The damn hidden immunity idol twist isn’t dead? Oh c’mon. This is another stupid twist that’s gotta go. Let’s not ruin another season by giving someone a free pass to the final three, at the expense of better players.

She decides to give it to who she thinks is the weakest link, Leslie. I think this is a smart move because Leslie’s the type of person who will remember it, should she happen to get to the merge. She wants to use it to gain someone’s trust, someone who’s smart. She picks Todd. He’s a little too smart, though. He hopes she gets booted so he’s the only one who knows about it. I think he’d be better off forming a group of 5 rather than plucking off people who obviously trust him.

Ashley and Dave continue their catfight. She’s tired of him being patronizing.

At the immunity challenge, they must use a puzzle log to bash through walls. The puzzle of that log must then be solved. To get down to 6-on-6, Zhan Hu sits out Jaime, and Fei Long sits out Courtney and Leslie. Fei Long gets off to an early lead with the strength of James and Jean-Robert, plus overall good teamwork. Dave falls apart on the other tribe. Fei Long pretty easily wins, as they continue to work together well at the puzzle.

Dave takes full responsibility for the challenge loss. Never a good idea. He thinks he’s safe, but it’s between him and Ashley. Ashley decides to wait until tribal council before strategizing, also never a good idea.

At tribal council, people take issue with Dave’s over the top leadership style. Dave pretends he’s not doing anything wrong, though he keeps snapping at people, and 6 days in Sherea doesn’t even know half the tribe’s last names. The main concern is just that one of them needs to go to break the tension. When asked what the criteria is for her vote, Ashley just says she’s voting for Dave.

Votes:
Ashley
Dave
Ashley
Ashley
Ashley

Ashley has been voted off. Can’t say I agree with the choice, as she’s a lot better than some others on the tribe, but hopefully at least Dave’s been given a wakeup call. Unfortunately, the previews suggest he gets even worse next week.

Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another live blog of Survivor: China episode 3, which airs Thursday at 8/7c on CBS.

Jeff Probst takes a look at Survivor: China episode 2. He says it’s full of a lot of drama.

After the jump, also check out the CBS promo for the episode.

As always, stay tuned to dingoRUE for a live recap from the east coast.

Continue Reading: (”Survivor: China Episode 2 Preview”)

The season opener of House started with a BANG! (literally) when an office building collapsed on its foundation. House’s mystery patient was a swollen girl named Megan, who was one of the survivors with not-so-normal symptoms compared to other survivors.

The last season ended with Cameron resigning, Chase being fired and Foreman following through on his planned resignation. The question, in this episode, is whether any of House’s associates will come back. Will House beg Cameron or Foreman to go back? Or will we be introduced to new characters?

Dr. Gregory House opened the season rocking solo to an Eddie Van Halen song on a classic white Flying V guitar. Alone in his office without any other doctors, this became the theme of the whole episode: Does House have the guts to cure patients on his own? Can he handle speaking to patients without Cameron or spying on his patient’s homes without Chase and Foreman?

Cuddy nags House to hire a new team to help him diagnose patients. Knowing House, Cuddy agreed to let house treat the patient for the entire week even without a team - just to prove to him that he can’t handle it alone. Dr. Wilson, on the other hand, blackmails House by kidnapping his beloved guitar to hire future members of his team. Of course, since House does not accept losses well, he plays along Wilson’s games and kidnaps one of Wilson’s patients instead.

Trying to figure out the case alone, House searched for anyone, even the janitor and doctors from the ER, whom he could exchange thoughts about the case with. Cuddy, knowing that House would pull such tricks, gave memos to the entire Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital to NOT help Dr. Gregory out.

The ending to Megan’s case was quite unpredictable. However, House’s debate with Cuddy as to how right he was about the case was predictable, but still remained very amusing. The episode ended with House playing his guitar and warning a group of potential staff that the next weeks to come under his supervision will be their worst nightmare.

I just can’t wait to see how jerky Dr. House can be with his new staff.

Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another recap of House Season 4 episode 2, which airs Tuesday at 9/8c on Fox.

Here’s a 4 minute preview of Heroes season 2 episode 2, Lizards. Contains spoilers.

If you missed it, don’t forget to check out Part 1 as well.

ABC easily won the night on continued strength of Dancing with the Stars and a good start for Private Practice. Bionic Woman started strongly for NBC. CBS will be none too pleased with Kid Nation’s performance.

ABC
Viewers: 13.76 million
18-49: 4.2/11

8-9 Dancing with the Stars
Viewers: 16.62 million
18-49: 4.0/12

9-10 Private Practice
Viewers: 14.24 million
18-49: 5.1/13

10-11 Dirty Sexy Money
Viewers: 10.42 million
18-49: 3.6/10

CBS
Viewers: 11.01 million
18-49: 3.3/9

8-9 Kid Nation
Viewers: 7.61 million
18-49: 2.8/8

9-10 Criminal Minds
Viewers: 12.71 million
18-49: 3.5/9

10-11 CSI: NY
Viewers: 12.70 million
18-49: 3.7/10

NBC
Viewers: 10.88 million
18-49: 4.1/11

8-9 Deal or No Deal
Viewers: 8.9 million
18-49: 2.6/8

9-10 Bionic Woman
Viewers: 13.59 million
18-49: 5.5/14

10-11 Life
Viewers: 10.15 million
18-49: 4.1/11

FOX
Viewers: 6.14 million
18-49: 2.5/7

8-8:30 Back to You
Viewers: 7.54 million
18-49: 2.8/9

8:30-9 ‘Til Death
Viewers: 6.21 million
18-49: 2.4/7

9-10 Kitchen Nightmares
Viewers: 5.41 million
18-49: 2.4

CW
Viewers: 3.70 million
18-49: 1.8/5

8-9 America’s Next Top Model
Viewers: 4.85 million
18-49: 2.4/7

9-10 Gossip Girl
Viewers: 2.55 million
18-49: 1.2/3

Stay tuned to dingoRUE for continued Nielsen Ratings coverage.

Fast National data is preliminary. Source: Nielsen Media and PIFeedback.

I’ve decided to add another section to the site in the form of Nielsen Ratings.

ABC won the night in total viewers on the strength of Dancing with the Stars, while Fox won in adults thanks to House. Boston Legal lost a sizeable chunk of its lead-in, and The Biggest Loser took a big drop from the prior weeks when it was going up against reruns. Despite the critical acclaim, Reaper failed to attract much attention, but it’s up from its lead-in and good enough for The CW.

ABC
Viewers: 14.33 million
18-49: 3.6/10

8-9:30 Dancing with the Stars
Viewers: 18.34 million (18.17 million last year, 7.00 million last week for Just for Laughs)
18-49: 4.7/13 (5.2/14 last year, 2.0/6 last week)

9:30-11 Boston Legal
Viewers: 10.31 million (11.28 million last year, 6.38 million last week for Elvis: Viva Las Vegas)
18-49: 2.6/7 (2.8/8 last year, 1.8/5 last week)

FOX
Viewers: 13.19 million
18-49: 5.4/14

8-9 Bones
Viewers: 8.26 million (8.61 million last year, 5.96 million last week for House rerun)
18-49: 3.2/9 (2.7/9 last year, 4.1/7 last week)

9-10 House
Viewers: 18.13 million (19.65 million last year, 4.87 million last week for K-Ville rerun)
18-49: 7.7/19 (6.7/18 last year, 1.7/4 last week)

CBS
Viewers: 11.84 million
18-49: 2.9/8

8-9 NCIS
Viewers: 13.67 million (13.48 million last year, 7.76 million last week for Power of 10)
18-49: 3.1/9 (3.4/10 last year, 1.9/6 last week)

9-10 The Unit
Viewers: 10.72 million (11.81 million last year, 8.51 million last week for Big Brother 8 )
18-49: 2.8/7 (3.1/8 last year, 3.3/9 last week)

10-11 Cane
Viewers: 11.12 million (11.00 last year for Smith, 7.85 million last week for NCIS rerun)
18-49: 2.9/8 (3.6/10 last year, 1.9/5 last week)

NBC
Viewers: 8.46 million
18-49: 3.6/10

8-10 The Biggest Loser
Viewers: 6.64 million (down from 7.90 million)
18-49: 2.9/7 (down ffrom 3.3/9)

10-11 Law & Order SVU
Viewers: 12.10 million (14.55 million last year, 6.00 million last week for Law & Order SVU rerun)
18-49: 4.8/13 (5.2/14 last year, 2.2/6 last week)

CW
Viewers: 3.1 million
18-49: 1.5/4

8-9 Beauty and the Geek
Viewers: 2.98 million (down from 3.34 million)
18-49: 1.5/4 (down from 1.7/5)

9-10 Reaper
Viewers: 3.22 million (3.36 million last year for Veronica Mars)
18-49: 1.4/4 (1.5/4 last year)

Stay tuned to dingoRUE for continued Nielsen Ratings coverage.

Fast National data is preliminary. Source: Nielsen Media and PIFeedback.

NBC has set a premiere date of Wednesday October 24th at 8/7c for Phenomenon, a series in which Criss Angel and Uri Geller will try to find “the next great mentalist,” reports Broadcast Newsroom.

The series will run for 5 Wednesdays, including a special live 2 hour episode on Halloween. It will take the time slot currently held by Deal or No Deal during that time.

I don’t know about this one. I think NBC’s better off just going with Deal or No Deal reruns.

Want more Private Practice? Subscribe to dingoRUE for continued coverage of Private Practice.

I noticed there was some interest in watching Private Practice online, so I figured I’d simplify things for those of you who want to watch it and just provide a direct link.

It’s unclear whether ABC will offer this directly on their own website or not, but as part of a recent deal between ABC and AOL, this show can be watched online for free at AOL TV.

Episodes will be available on the Internet one day after they air on television and will be presented with limited commercial interruption.

Watch Grey’s Anatomy Online!

Here’s NBC’s summary of Heroes Season 2 episode 2, Lizards, along with the promo video. (Contains some spoilers.) As always, dingoRUE will have a live recap from the east coast when the show airs.

AS MATT INVESTIGATES THE DEATH OF ONE HERO, ANOTHER IS ATTACKED BY THIS NEW SINISTER FORCE STALKING THOSE WITH ABILITIES — NIKI, MICAH AND THE HAITIAN RETURN — DIRECTED BY EXECUTIVE PRODUCER ALLAN ARKUSH.

With one person dead, Matt (Greg Grunberg) enlists some unlikely help as the attacks continue on people with abilities. Claire’s (Hayden Panettiere) efforts to hide her healing abilities at her new California high school are jeopardized by a fellow student with a secret of his own. Niki (Ali Larter) and Micah (Noah Gray-Cabey) leave Las Vegas in an attempt to start over. As part of his new job, Dr. Suresh (Sendhil Ramamurthy) must track down The Haitian (guest star Jimmy Jean-Louis). While crossing into Mexico, Maya (Dania Ramirez) and Alejandro’s (Shalim Ortiz) abilities prove to be a threat to those around them. Meanwhile, disappointed by his hero Kensei (David Anders), Hiro (Masi Oka) resolves to rectify any damage his presence in feudal Japan has done to history. And another lost Hero falls in with a gang of Irish gangsters with clues to his past.

Jack Coleman, Dana Davis, James Kyson Lee, Adrian Pasdar, Zachary Quinto, Milo Ventimiglia also star. Nick D’Agosto, Katie Carr, Ashley Crow, Cristine Rose, Barry Shabaka Henley, Dominic Keating, Holt McCallany, Eriko Tamura, Adair Tishler and Stephen Tobolowsky guest star.

In case you missed it, don’t forget to check out part 2 of the episode 2 preview, which is 4 minutes of preview clips.