New seasons of Survivor and The Amazing Race begin in February, with two new shows also on the schedule.
Sunday, as of February 15
8-9 The Amazing Race 14
9-10 Cold Case
10-11 The Unit
Thursday, as of February 12
8-9 Survivor 18
9-10 CSI
10-11 Eleventh Hour
Thursday, as of April 9
8-9 Survivor 18
9-10 CSI
10-11 Harper’s Island
Friday, as of January 9
8-9 Ghost Whisperer
9-10 Flashpoint
10-11 Numb3rs
After a hiatus following being treated with the same uncertainty The WB used to treat all of its shows with, Reaper will be back for season 2 on Tuesday March 17 at 9. The show will follow 90210, which I suppose makes about as much sense as we’re going to get considering this is The CW we’re talking about here. The second season will be an abridged 13 episodes.
The Apprentice was almost cancelled (Donald Trump went so far as to tell the network they couldn’t fire him because he was a quitter) as its ratings continued to slump after the network made one dumb decision after another (and this latest decision may well fall into that category), but TVWeek reports that following the success of The Celebrity Apprentice, The Celebrity Apprentice 2 will be supersized (hopefully without Trump’s ego being supersized as well).
The second season of the celebrity version of The Apprentice will now air for two hours on Sunday nights, with a February start date likely. No specific time frame has been given for the show, which struggled the last time it was on Sunday nights.
Reportedly, this was not originally planned when the show was filmed, so now the producers will need to find ways to fill the two hours, hopefully without doing things like The Biggest Loser producers do (i.e. taking an hour to weigh in four people).
“It’s great,†Mark Burnett said during a brief telephone conversation from New York. “It wasn’t a sudden call at all. During production, the people at NBC were saying the show was so great and should really be two hours.â€
“Donald has always felt the boardrooms were too short, and I think he’s right,†Mr. Burnett said. “Right now, there’s really only about nine minutes of footage that we use and the boardroom (scenes) go on for hours sometimes. The problem has been trying to squeeze it all in. Every season we go through the struggle of cutting the show down.”
After what can only be described as the dumbest move of the season the prior week, Amy was sent home in The Biggest Loser Families Episode 11.
The final five will be heading to New York City for makeover week. After their makeover, they’ll be able to do the Tyra Banks Show.
First up is the hair salon. Vicky goes red, while Ed gets highlights. After getting some new hairstyles, they meet Christian Soriano from Project Runway to assist them with new clothes, which turns into an emotioal reflection on how far they’ve come.
Once they get over the nerves of being on national TV with Tyra (because they haven’t been on national TV every week for two months), as always with the makeover shows, it’s also time for family reunions.
After, when they decide to go out for a night on the town, Bob and Jillian are on a screen in Times Square with a reminder: the scale will be waiting for them when they get back.
Renee, whose husband is in good shape, manages to get in a good workout with him, something she wouldn’t have been able to do before she lost all the weight.
Michelle goes to work out some with her dad, and she says that she and her mom can now move on and get past whatever got in the way before.
When they get back, Jillian lets them know she doesn’t care about anything but beating them into losing weight. Vicky says she’s concerned because Grand Canyon week was her second worst week of the season.
The challenge involves something suspended above water. They have to get inside bottomless glass cubes 15 feet above the water and stay there for as long as they can. The winner will get a two week trip for two to the Fitness Ridge Resort & Spa in St. George, Utah. Despite her initial confidence she would win this because it’s a spa challenge, Vicky sits down (too much of a wimp to go in the water) and is out first. After much debate and encouragement (i.e. Heba saying she’s going to choke her) from the others, she still refuses to jump in the water. Heba is out at 18 minutes. Alison tells Vicky there’s only one way down. Ed is next out, leaving mother and daughter left again. Everybody else is struggling, but Michelle’s just having a walk in the park. Renee’s out shortly after Ed at 32:23, and Michelle wins. Michelle jumps in the water.
And Vicky? She just stays there and pouts. The spotlight’s right on her, whether Michelle won the challenge or not. The thought of her children is not enough encouragement, so Ed hops back in the water to try to give her a point of reference. Following much drama and lots of tears, Vicky finally jumps and doesn’t die or anything.
After a long last chance workout, it’s time for the weigh-in.
Vicky: 176 pounds (-4, 2.22%)
Renee: 195 pounds (-4, 2.01%)
Michelle: 171 pounds (-5, 2.84%)
Ed: 250 pounds (-3, 1.19%)
Heba: 217 pounds (-7, 3.13%)
Ed and Renee are below the yellow line, and with blue team having the votes, that means Michelle’s the only hope left for the season to turn out well.
Ed realizes he’s (in theory) a bigger threat than Renee, so he wouldn’t be entirely surprised if Vicky turns on him.
Votes
Michelle: Ed
Heba: Renee
Vicky: Renee
Not surprisingly, Renee has been eliminated. Nonetheless, she appreciated the experience, particularly to be able to reunite with her daughter. And unlike the sham that was Big Brother 8, this was both a believable and also an enjoyable journey to watch. She is now down a total of 95 pounds. She’s done some public speaking and leads a fitness group at work.
The promo lets us know that America gets a vote, so with that in mind, I think it’s safe to say Michelle will be in the finals whether she is eliminated next week or not.
Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another recap of The Biggest Loser Families episode 13, which airs Tuesday at 8/7c on NBC.
The eclipse started in Heroes Season 3 Episode 10, as all the heroes have so far found themselves powerless. Claire’s been shot, Daphne’s barely able to walk, and Nathan’s been captured by gun toting maniacs. Now it’s time for part two.
Peter wants to try to be a hero, even without his powers.
Contrary to the original plan, Claire has been brought to the hospital, where her mom pretends that it just happened, something the people at the hospital aren’t buying. Her whole system is infected like she’s never been sick, and as HRG warned, the cops will be coming.
Sylar and Elle have found their own not clothed way of getting over their power loss. The picnic ends when HRG shows up, starts firing, and kicks the door down. He hits Elle, but they manage to flee.
Claire’s mom calls HRG. He says she should tell them what he would tell them. She knows this means to lie.
Without her abilities, Daphne has cerebral palsy and needs to use leg braces. She believes that Arthur Petrelli is punishing them and the loss of their abilities is because of him. She also continues to insist she’s a villain.
Hiro and Ando are looking for answers, which they hope to find in back issues of the comic books. Unlike most people with the mind of a 10 year old, he’s got a credit card, which he happily uses about as responsibly as most other people do.
Peter and the Haitian find and knock down the Haitian’s brother, who tells them the only way to stop him is to kill him.
Frack (one of the comic store guys) thinks their powers will come back when the eclipse ends.
Nathan apologizes to a fellow captive for not having stood up for her when he had power and influence.
As Claire’s giving what sounds like a farewell speech, the machines she’s hooked up to start going crazy.
Much to her disappointment, Sylar makes sure he gets separated from Elle. Then he attacks HRG. Following a fight, HRG slits Sylar’s throat.
A dead Claire isn’t doing any better than Sylar is, but as her mom lifts the sheet off her head, she begins to recover.
With the eclipse over, the other heroes are regaining their powers as well. Daphne’s out of her leg braces, and Parkman’s able to read minds again. He wants to convince her again that she’s a good person.
Peter’s managed to free his brother but now finds himself in the middle of a gunfight. Though his men are defeated, the Haitian’s brother still has a god complex. With his abilities back, the Haitian manages to stop him, without resorting to having to shoot him.
When he goes to visit Maya, Suresh finds he’s back to being a mutant again.
Hiro doesn’t want to grow up. He doesn’t see why he should either. The comic books are doing just fine reading comic books and eating junk food. Sam (the other comic store guy) manages to convince him that he gives people hope that an ordinary person can be extraordinary. While reading through the comic books with a magnifying glass, they notice Hiro and Claire together in one of them, and they suggest he take Claire there to get his memory back.
Claire’s healed, physically anyway. Her father not being there for her as usual is a problem. During their discussion, Elle and Sylar come back. HRG wants Sylar to know that the Petrellis are just trying to turn him into a weapon and are not his real parents. Just as Sylar begins to cut HRG’s head off, Hiro shows up to stop the bad man. He takes Elle and Sylar elsewhere, then grabs Claire so he can save the cheerleader.
According to Sam, he heard a legend from a guy at a convention who heard from a dude who heard from another dude that one more 9th Wonder story exists. Isaac gave this to a bike messenger.
Nathan tells Peter that he respects him for always making his own decisions, whether they turn out okay or not. Now he’s headed to Pinehearst, as he believes that abilities will help stop the world’s genocide. The abilities may not be a good way, but they’re better than the alternative.
Suresh is ready to get back to work, since he doesn’t have anywhere else to go anyway.
Sylar says that nobody ever really changes, and that both he and Elle are just damaged goods. With that said, he drills into her head.
Hiro’s gone back to the past with Claire. The only other time they met was when she was a baby.
Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another live recap of Heroes Season 3 episode 12 Our Father, which airs Monday at 9/8c on NBC.
They managed to get their hands on Scylla during Prison Break Season 4 Episode 12, which has been the whole mission this season… only to lose it again to a double crossing Agent Self.
Mahone knows that Self’s government and can do as he pleases. Michael suggests calling Homeland Security and seeing how much they know. Self is beating them to the punch. He calls up and pretends he’s been shot by Scofield and Burrows. Then he fires shots and hangs up.
Michael calls and asks to speak to Self’s supervisor. Herb Stanton answers. Michael responds by hanging up.
The general’s not any happier, even if he is less sober. When he’s asked what his plan is, he just kills the guy who asked. Nobody else seems to have any further questions.
Michael takes something out of his pocket and hides it. It appears to be a computer chip. Then he collapses.
Lincoln spoke to LJ yesterday and told him it was almost over. He plans to keep his word.
Stanton calls Michael and asks him to come back to the warehouse. He apparently doesn’t know that Self set them up, and his new terms are to either turn themselves in or be hunted down like animals. Dumb terms.
Sucre wants to flee to Mexico, but Michael still insists that they take down the company and finish what they started. They figure that Self planned to unload Scylla with Gretchen’s assistance.
The news has picked up the story at Gate, and police have sketches of T-Bag and Gretchen.
Burrows calls Gretchen to tell her Self double crossed them. She claims she’s looking for Self, too. Then she gets a call from her sister, who tells her that her daughter’s been in an accident. Not falling for it, she wants to speak to whoever’s go the gun to her head. It’s Self, who tells her to come home.
Senator Dallow tells Stanton it’s madness because nobody knows, leaving himself and a couple of agents responsible for capturing the band of ex-cons. The US Marshalls are now on the case and want to know about this situation that nobody knows about.
Gretchen walks in on a captive Rita, promising everything will be alright. Self agrees everything will be okay, as long as she helps him find a new buyer for Scylla. Perhaps having her daughter hostage will help persuade her.
Realizing too late they’ve been setup by the feds as they wait for Gretchen, Lincoln has been captured by homeland security.
Self tells Michael that he likes him because he’s a smart guy. He’s just not smart enough. With that said, he’s got some advice, though: get his pals and start running.
While Gretchen takes Self to someone who may be able to help with a buy, T-Bag will stay behind to watch over her sister and daughter. Not the most stable character to leave them with, and not one who’s at all happy with her either. Her sister’s not too believing of the assurances she receives from her and starts swinging.
It turns out Self has a new identity and an escape out of the country ready to go. Lincoln gets an apology and a new offer. Either help them nail Self, or rot in prison. Sounds a lot like the old deal they got from Self. Senator Dallow gets Michael on the phone and pitches him this deal, telling him to come in so they can end this.
He agrees to hear the Senator out, but he’s got a plan just in case they, too, try to screw him. Sara tells him that, although she doesn’t like how he’s acting lately, nothing will come between them.
Gretchen tells Self that, when this is all over, he’s going to be just as alone as he is now. So he calls T-Bag and asks him to take out his gun and point it at Rita’s head. Gretchen will get Self on the plane by the end of the day or else.
Mahone comes to meet Sucre and Sara where Michael sent them, in a parking lot, which they realize doesn’t make sense. Michael didn’t really want them to look out for him. Rather, he wanted to look out for them, sending them to a bus that will take them out of the city. Sara believes that, if the deal is legit, there’s no need for them to run.
The punishment for conducting this operation without Congressional approval is 15 years in jail. If they get caught. Michael pushes for a deal where the others can run free while he and his brother testify, and when that attempt doesn’t fly, he knows there was no deal. As Michael’s being threatened at gunpoint with a countdown to five, shots are fired from behind them, taking out their immediate threat.
Only the shooter’s no ally, and he leads them off by gunpoint to bring them to the general. Good thing Sucre’s back, and with some more shots fired, they’re now back in control. Dallow blames Stanton and says it wasn’t his doing and tells them that, once they dispose of a folder in the briefcase on a table, none of this ever happened. Michael decides to let him go back to his wife and not kill him.
The conduit who’s working with Self will do business with him on Scylla. Once it’s complete. It seems there’s a piece missing. Time to go back to the people he just screwed over. Scofield tells him to come and get it.
Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another live recap of Prison Break season 4 episode 14 Just Business, which airs Monday at 9/8c on Fox.
Andrew & Dan continued to screw up in The Amazing Race 13 Episode 9, but try as they might, they could not get themselves eliminated and instead were greeted by a non-elimination when they arrived at the mat in last place.
One football game ended (late), then we were greeted with another one. With that, 60 Minutes is about 40 minutes late. A live blog will begin when 60 Minutes is over.
Teams depart in the order in which they arrived.
First: Toni & Dallas
Second: Ken & Tina
Third: Nick & Starr
Fourth: Andrew & Dan
Departure times aren’t given, and normally when they hide something like that, it means someone’s so far ahead or behind they don’t want to completely kill the drama. Either that or production difficulties messed with the departure times and made them more than 12 hours from arrival.
The first stop is a retired nuclear submarine, where they will look for an actor from the Hunt for Red October. The first three teams hit an hours of operation of 9:00.
The next stop is the Graveyard of Fallen Monuments, which means they’ll first need to deal with nightmarish Moscow traffic. Twice for Andrew & Dan, who went 40 minutes out of their way to the wrong park.
The road block is to identify the number of Stalin and Lenin statues in the park (labeled only in Russian), combine the numbers, and tell their guess to the shopkeeper. If they are correct, they will be given a book; if they are incorrect, they must wait 10 minutes before trying again. On the page that was the same as their correct guess, they’ll be directed to the apartment of a famous Russian author, Mikhail Bulgakov.
Road block (in order of arrival): Nick, Dallas, Tina, Dan
While Ken & Tina are arguing as they arrive at the road block, Nick & Starr steal their cab, which has GPS (though they still arrived at the road block third). Nick arrives at the shop and is correct on his first guess. Dallas is incorrect on his first guess, and for some reason he’s further complicating his wrong answer by reversing the numbers, apparently confusing Lenin and Stalin. He tries again and is wrong again. Tina is wrong on her first guess, but she’s on the right track. After working with Tina, Dallas is closer but still wrong. Tina is correct on her next guess and lets Dallas know what’s right. She’s kicking herself afterwards for this, as is Ken. Dallas finally gets it right. Dan’s clueless, but with the assistance of a local, he manages to get through the task pretty well. His first guess is close but incorrect, though. The good news for him is that Andrew has arrived to see Toni still sitting there waiting. He tries upping it by one and is correct on his next guess.
The better news for Dan is that Dallas left his bag with the passports and money in the cab. It’s possible to get through a leg without money and may be possible to get through it without a passport if they’re not going to another country, but sooner or later this will present a problem. This is not the first time Americans have begged on a street on this show, and that’s pretty much their only option at this point. They find a local to give them directions and cash. They decide to take the metro, which is a further complication because the clue specifically says to travel by taxi.
From there, teams will go to Sokolniki Park, where they’ll search for a lady with a shetland pony.
When Toni & Dallas arrive, they are denied their next clue (instead of just receiving a penalty) until they travel by taxi. Given that they’re neck and neck with Andrew & Dan, things aren’t looking good, but at least Andrew & Dan must complete their speed bump first. They get some cash to get back to the apartment building.
Andrew & Dan’s speed bump is to perform with a group of traditional Russian dancers. Based on last week when they couldn’t even march correctly, this should prove problematic, albeit entertaining. Their first attempt is rejected. Their second attempt is still pitiful but apparently close enough.
The detour is a choice between ride the rails or ride the lines. In ride the rails, teams will catch a train to a snack shop to receive a samsa (pastry) with a wrapper directing them to another train. Then they will find a statue of the man who created the Cyrillic alphabet, and there they will be given a postcard with the name of the station they’ll have to head to last. There are a lot of trains, and everything’s written in Cyrillic, but trains come so frequently that they should be able to catch another one to fix their mistakes quickly. In ride the lines, teams will ride a trolley bus to a keymaker. He will give them a key which they will use for a storage box after taking another trolley bus. The storage box contains the postcard with their final destination. The trolley buses travel on a fixed course, but they must make sure they’re on the correct mode of travel and will have to contend with Moscow traffic.
Ride the rails: Nick & Starr, Toni & Dallas
Ride the lines: Ken & Tina, Andrew & Dan
With Nick being from New York, it doesn’t seem he’s having any trouble with the subway. Ken & Tina are, as Phil warned, on the wrong type of transport, just a regular bus. This won’t do anything to help their continued bickering. Somehow, Andrew & Dan are doing their task with no problem, and they edge out Ken & Tina in a footrace to the mat. However, Ken & Tina need to go back and find their clue at the end of the detour, which they have not yet completed. Not that it’ll end up mattering.
The pit stop for this leg of the race is VDNKh Park.
First: Nick & Starr (win a trip to Anguilla)
Second: Andrew & Dan
Third: Ken & Tina
Eliminated: Toni & Dallas
Phil comes out of the place with the storage box and tells Toni & Dallas they have been eliminated. Dallas made a pretty critical mistake, but Andrew & Dan being in the final three is just wrong.
Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another live recap of The Amazing Race 13 Episode 11 You Look Like Peter Pan, where we will find out who The Amazing Race 13 winner is, which airs Sunday at 8/7cish on CBS.
After Amy turned on her team the prior week, Vicky decided she hated her guts, treated her like an outcast, and called her as many vile, hateful things as she could think of in The Biggest Loser Families Episode 10. So how did Amy get even? Rather than voting her out when given the chance, she instead voted out Coleen, thus handing control of the game back over to Vicky. This just doesn’t add up.
Jillian guarantees that Vicky will still get revenge on Amy, whether she was dumb enough to save her last time or not.
Amy believes they’re moving on. Like adults. Heba lets us know Vicky’s not exactly an adult, though.
This week is NFL week. Jerry Rice and Steve Young are there to meet them. They will be doing some football training drills. The winner will be able to give $10,000 to the school of their choice from NFL Play 60, which helps fight childhood obesity. Once they’re done with the course, they’re informed of a twist. They don’t need the fastest time. Rather, they need the best improvement over their first time, as they’ll be running it again. Vicky slacked off during her first run, sensing that there would be a twist.
Heba: 5 seconds improvement
Amy: 7 seconds
Michelle: 11 seconds
Ed: 12 seconds
Renee: 17 seconds
Vicky: 23 seconds
Bob’s worried about Ed, who’s having trouble keeping up with the girls.
At the competition, the players will need to grab balls and put them in another player’s bin at the end of the field. When you reach 10, you’re out. Reward is a Pro Bowl package in Hawaii. As an added incentive, every time they actually catch the balls being launched from the machines, they win $500 cash (Ed manages to grab one). Their uniform numbers are the amount of weight they’ve lost so far.
Blue team targets black, Michelle first. She’s out pretty quickly. Black targets Ed, who’s at 4. Renee is black’s next target, and she’s quickly out of the game as well. Now it’s every man for himself. The easy thing is to just keep going after Ed since he’s more than halfway out. Amy’s adding balls quickly now that black’s out. With Ed at 9 balls, Vicky has the chance to take him out. Instead, she opts to give Amy her fifth, making Amy the last person in the country to realize Vicky’s after her. As much talk as there is about how great a player Vicky is at this game, it’s times like this that show she doesn’t get the game as well as she’d like. There are times to show your second face. A competition that doesn’t mean much isn’t one of those times. Amy finishes off Ed. Heba finishes off Amy, who says there aren’t any alliances on the blue team that she knows of (are you kidding me?). Now it’s between Vicky and Heba, who have few balls in their bins already because nobody has gone after them. Vicky beats Heba, and America reaches for the antacid.
Jillian doesn’t like that her team got bullied. Nobody bullies her team. Except her.
Rocco DiSpirito’s back again. He’s cooked a traditional Thanksgiving dinner. A great feast to indulge in, but also one of the unhealthiest meals of the year for most people. So instead, he’s going to be cooking a healthy alternative to Thanksgiving dinner. He starts with boiled turkey breast. The stuffing is made with turkey sausage, Ezekiel bread, and no butter. The apple pie is made with a crumble instead of a crust, sugar substitute, and a little corn starch. These modifications change the calories from 480 per serving to 190 for the turkey, 500 down to 120 for the apple pie, and 400 down to 170 for the stuffing, for a total savings of 900 calories (about 2/3). After dinner, they get to go see some videos from home, with words of encouragement as we head into the final weeks.
Bob hammers into his team’s heads that they need to get down to one black shirt left. Amy seems to be buying it, in spite of everything she’s seen and heard.
Amy: 168 pounds (-5, 2.89%)
Heba: 224 pounds (-7, 3.03%)
Ed: 253 pounds (-9, 3.44%)
Vicky: 180 pounds (-7, 3.74%)
Renee: 199 pounds (-8, 3.86%)
Michelle: 176 pounds (-10, 5.38%)
That leaves Amy and Heba below the yellow line. I think we all know how this is going to go down. Amy has been the biggest loser on campus so far, but she threw the game away last week with a ridiculous decision to keep Vicky around, alliance intact.
Votes
Michelle: Heba
Renee: Heba
Ed: Amy
Vicky: Amy
Black team supported Amy as they promised they would. Blue team turned on Amy as we all knew they would. I wonder if she’s figured out yet that Vicky’s in an alliance. Due to the tie, Amy has been eliminated since she has the lowest percentage of weight loss for the week. She’s down from a size 22 to a size 8. Her college is supporting her by giving her access to their athletic trainers.
The five contestants who remain will be going to New York City for makeover week.
Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another live recap of The Biggest Loser Families episode 12, which airs Tuesday at 8/7c on NBC.