Shane

The Celebrity Apprentice 2 Official

This time last year, The Apprentice’s future looked uncertain, and it wasn’t long before Donald Trump threw a tantrum and quit the show. The combination of a celebrity twist, decent time slot, and writers strike have changed all that, though. The Celebrity Apprentice has seen the show’s best ratings in years, and NBC has announced that The Celebrity Apprentice 2 will begin in January 2009.

Craig Plestis, Executive Vice President, Alternate Programming, Development, and Specials, NBC Entertainment (I remember this guy from the last time I had to write his ridiculously long title) said, “This revved up installment of “The Apprentice” has been a game changer for the series. As the rest of this season unfolds, you just keep watching, these episodes have been more thrilling than any season before. There were times when I was screaming at the TV set, literally, and the live finale will leave you on the edge of your seat.”

“Everywhere I go, people come up to me and ask about ‘Celebrity Apprentice.’ Viewers are clearly connecting, but beyond the terrific ratings, it’s really the charities who are winning the most. Our celebrities have raised over a million dollars to date. We are so glad NBC has decided to continue this franchise.” Said Mark Burnett, executive producer of The Celebrity Apprentice.

American Idol 7 Episode 5

There wasn’t a great deal going on in South Carolina in American Idol 7 Episode 4, but we did get a glimpse at the potentially annoyingly perky Amy Catherine Flynn, along with a couple of loud siblings Michelle and Jeffrey Lampkin. It was largely an uneventful city, as half the people who got through were fairly unimpressive, while half the people who got rejected were better than the people they normally let go to Hollywood.

Tonight, American Idol heads to… Omaha, Nebraska?

Chris Bernheisel is up first, and we already know he sucks before he even opens his mouth in the audition room because we heard him practicing. He sings Kelly Clarkson’s Since You Been Gone. Or at least tries to. After being rejected, he auditions for reporting on the finale. Simon accepts him and wants him to tell the local Fox affiliate to let him in. We all know Simon’s just looking for someone to replace Ryan Seacrest. Fox 42, if you’re watching, you’re pretty much stuck.

Jason Rich is from a town in Iowa of about 500 people. He sings Keith Whitley’s When You Say Nothing at All, which sounds good, but he can’t remember the words past the first sentence. On his fourth try, he finally gets it. Good enough to go through to the next round.

Rachel Wicker wants to arm wrestle Simon. Simon’s chicken and says no. She sings Don’t Tell Me by Lee Ann Womack. Simon thinks she sounds old and rejects her, but he’s outvoted, despite Randy’s concerns about her half yodeling.

Goth former pro wrestler Sarah Whitaker is clearly looking for attention and not much more. Simon’s able to muster a “You’re just really strange.” Seacrest questions why she didn’t get through, and they offer him the chance to be a judge, so he swaps with Paula.

This gives Samantha Sidley a chance for camera time she wouldn’t have gotten otherwise. It’s not long before they throw him out of the room and have to tell him “other door.” Taking Ryan’s lead, the judges let her through. Her getting through leads to a montage of people who don’t suck, which Seacrest is quick to accept credit for.

Angelica Puente, who moved out to live with her grandmother due to problems she’s had with her father but still wants to make him proud, sings The Power of Love by Celine Dion. She’s nervous and told she sounds too much like the original, but there are worse things. She gets through to the next round.

David Cook says he brings something a little different to the show (different meaning similar to Chris Daughtry). He’s a rocker with a good voice.

Johnny Escamilla, “one of the weirdest guys you’ll ever meet,” is up next. Oh, do we even need to watch this to know what’s going to happen? Simon hates… everything.

One last person to prevent Omaha from being pointless, Leo Marlowe. He sings A Song for You and has one of the better voices we’ve heard thus far.

Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another live recap of American Idol 7 episode 6, which airs Wednesday at 8/7c on Fox.

Kyle XY Season 2 Episode 16

In an attempt to gain approval from her peers, Jessi jumped off a building, walked on water, and got caught doing it in Kyle XY Season 2 Episode 15. Kyle managed to convince everybody it was all just a trick, which Jessi ultimately was okay with, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t still have a mischievous side to explore.

The Trager family decides to do some spring cleaning. Josh just dumps everything without thinking, mostly so he can goof off while everybody else cleans, but Kyle likes all his stuff. While they’re outside finding out that in addition to everything else Kyle’s great at throwing a football, Amanda steps out of a cab. She’s greeted in a way only Kyle can: all the car alarms on the block go off at the same time. When they start talking, Kyle senses she’s troubled. She delays his question until a later time and says “We need to talk,” leading to warnings from Lori and Josh about that phrase being bad news.

Once Lori’s done cleaning, she asks for permission to boycott an assignment from her guidance counselors about who she really is (guidance counselors give assignments?). Josh suggests a paper about how she’s sarcastic, moody, and cynical (she says she’s not a cynic).

Jessi comes to see Kyle and wants some more lessons. She brushes off the fact that she hurt herself jumping off another roof. He wants to wait until after he’s done seeing Amanda. That talk, though, is pretty brief. As the others were afraid, she’s got bad news for him. She tells him she can’t see him any more, and her mother forces her inside, upset at the news that Amanda wants to drop out. Kyle’s told he can’t see or speak to her until she returns to the music conservatory. Yeah, because that type of excessively restrictive attitude will really help matters.

Kyle’s got a plan. He doesn’t need to see or speak to her. There’s text messages (phone’s been confiscated). There’s e-mail (blocked by parental controls). So when all else fails, he plays the guitar outside her window (d’oh… Stephen stops him). The alarm code’s even been changed to keep her in the house.

So it’s on to plan b. Kyle, Lori, and Josh are discussing the next move, when they find out an eavesdropping Jessi can do anything Kyle can do. They decide they can utilize her, sending her to ring the doorbell. Amanda’s mom isn’t too happy, saying “You’re Lori’s trampy friend.” Jessi responds, “No, that’s Hillary.” She slams the door on her face, telling her to pass a message to Kyle, “Nice try.” It’s really all just a ploy to get close enough to get the code to the alarm, though. The next step is to get the shades pulled down in Amanda’s room, so Lori throws pebbles at the window, resulting in a quick response from her mom.

Jessi wants Lori to know she didn’t mean to do what she did and is there to help now. Despite the initial resistance, Lori may be willing to meet her half way.

Kyle begins phase two on a set of Christmas lights. This leads to the electrical system, which connects to the neighborhood transformer, which leads back to Amanda’s house. After knocking out the lights in her house, Kyle uses a projector and writes the alarm code and a meeting place on his window to send her a message, an idea he got from Amanda’s favorite Romeo & Juliet scene. Phase three involves Josh in a wig in Amanda’s room, praying not to get caught.

When they meet, a romantic dinner is setup for them. Even Hillary pitches in by cooking (she’s secretly a Top Chef fan), modifying their menu to what she wants instead of what was requested. Kyle eventually brings up the reason he brought her there, and she tells him that her feelings for him could never change. Everything’s going great until her insane mother shows up and catches them. She forces her to get in the car to head off for a flight back to school. As she’s leaving, we find out an increasingly jealous Jessi is the reason the plan didn’t work.

Kyle, Josh, and Lori get grounded, but Jessi’s not quite off the hook. Taylor busts her as she’s sneaking back in. Just as it looks like she’s about to be punished, though, he turns out to mostly be concerned with the big plans he has for her, which they’ll discuss in the morning.

Amanda never got on the plane. She knocks on Kyle’s window looking for a place to hide.

Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another recap of Kyle XY Season 2 episode 17 Grounded, which airs Monday at 8/7c on ABC Family.

Survivor Renewed

While some are quick to point out that Survivor’s ratings are fading (Survivor: China, the best edition of the franchise in years, marked the first increase in viewers from a previous season since Palau), it’s still one of the top 20 shows on TV 8 years after it premiered. With that in mind, Variety reports that CBS has renewed it for an additional two seasons through the 18th.

“‘Survivor’ is a show that defies ratings gravity,” CBS’ Ghen Maynard said. “It is truly remarkable feat to be winning your time period in all ratings categories after 15 editions.”

Jeff Probst will continue hosting, and casting has begun on Survivor 17.

The Biggest Loser 5 Episode 4

Yet another team with only one person’s heart in the game was eliminated in The Bigest Loser 5 Episode 3, as despite Amanda’s best efforts, Neill slacking off irritated the rest of the teams. At the end of the episode, Alison posed a question: if they could vote out one team, right now, who would that be?

She gives them an hour to think about it. They can only discuss it with their own teammates. Maggie and Jenn feel guilty because everybody voted for them to stay, which means they have to vote against someone they feel helped save them. They decide they want to go for the strongest team. Jackie wants to target Mark and Jay, but Dan suggests this is a risky strategy as it sends too strong a signal considering they may not actually go home. Her response, which is equally worth considering, is that if they don’t vote for them, they risk getting the most votes themselves. Mark & Jay and Roger & Trent employ a similar strategy, considering the teams who have been below the yellow line. Paul wants to vote for Mark & Jay. Kelly wants to at least consider Roger & Trent, an argument that Paul can’t really debate, so he says he cares more about the fact that Trent needs to be there.

Votes
Paul & Kelly: Mark & Jay
Bernie & Brittany: Mark & Jay
Maggie & Jenn: Paul & Kelly
Mark & Jay: Paul & Kelly
Roger & Trent: Maggie & Jenn
Jackie & Dan: Maggie & Jenn
Bette-Sue & Ali: Paul & Kelly

With three votes, Paul & Kelly have been chosen. I’d like to say I can understand the logic behind these votes, but the majority of them don’t make a great deal of sense. That’s probably because there are alliances on both sides who are more concerned about voting out people not aligned with them than people who are going to put up bigger numbers. Kelly gives what is essentially a goodbye speech, but Alison tells her she’s not going home. It’s all vs. one. For the next week, everybody else’s only competition is the yellow team. If they have a greater percentage of weight loss than all the other teams combined, they can choose who goes home. If they don’t, they go home. A lot of power but also a lot of danger, particularly considering how big a week they had last week as The Biggest Loser team of the week. Then again, last week was a big week for everybody following a bad week two. They can pick one trainer to focus exclusively on them. They pick Jillian. Paul’s ready for battle. Game on.

Now they get a bit of good news. They hike up the hill to choose what they want as their reward for winning last week. Paul has a one track mind focused on gameplay. She’s going on and on about sheets and phone calls and other stuff that’s not going to make as big a difference as a gameplay option, especially in a week where they either win or go home. He repeatedly insists on gameplay. She comes up with a compromise, where if they win and get a reward next week, he’ll have to consider one of the other options, which won’t make any sense then either, but whatever. The reward is an additional two pounds at weigh-in of their choice, which obviously will be this week.

Jillian tries to talk some sense into Paul and his warrior spirit. While he should definitely fight to stay, she’s concerned that they’ll run the risk of alienating everybody else. Not taking the hint, when asked by the other teams what they won for a prize, they say they can’t tell them.

Aside from being a paid advertisement, the breakfast segment has a point: don’t skip breakfast, or your metabolism will pay the price.

The challenge is running across balance beams above water, grabbing pegs, and filling in a board. Every player must get at least one peg. If this were about running, Paul & Kelly would be in big trouble, but since the key is balance and multiple people on the other team have little balance, they have a shot. They are playing for letters from home. Mark gets across with relative ease. Paul’s a ways behind, but Bernie struggles, allowing Paul to get a good lead. Roger does a decent job but is unable to come close to the gap Bernie’s created. However, Jackie goes faster than anybody else, but even still is only able to bring their team behind by one. Trent’s struggling even more than Bernie did. A 400 pound guy and a balance beam don’t mix well. It’s pretty clear the gap is now too big to close, as Paul is now two ahead. Kelly’s on the sidelines waiting for her one turn, and he has absolutely no interest in letting her go. Trent gets to the middle and falls. He must return to the start. By the time Jay starts, he’s behind by five pegs. Paul & Kelly win the challenge. Kelly’s thrilled to get the letters, but Paul couldn’t care less. He’s more concerned about what he’s there to do, which he should be. As an interesting gesture, they agree to forego the letters in exchange to allow the other team to all get letters. Not only does it keep them focused, but it’s a chance to earn some points with the other teams.

Now things are starting to get interesting. Dan & Jackie, Paul & Kelly, Bernie & Brittany, and Maggie (but not Jenn) form an alliance. The plan is to throw the weigh in because this represents the best opportunity to get rid of Mark & Jay, who if left in the game are one of the biggest threats and unlikely to go below the yellow line. Bob not so subtly suggests that gameplay would suggest throwing the weigh in but says he doesn’t want to be blindsided.

We then switch gears from the gameplay aspect of things to the warm fuzzy tearful letters from home. But it’s not long before it’s time to get back in the game and head to the scales. Before the weigh in starts, it’s revealed that Mark & Jay have one last hope. The team with the highest percentage of weight loss this week will be immune. Since half of the teams, including two of the stronger teams, planned to throw the weigh in, they have a good chance.

Bette-Sue: 224 (-7)
Ali: 198 (-8)
Total: -15 pounds, 3.43%

Roger: 331 (-12)
Trent: 375 (-13)
Total: -25 pounds, 3.48%

Bernie: 241 (-7)
Brittany: 201 (-2)
Total: -9 pounds, 2.00%

Bob gets suspicious, but Brittany pulled a -1 in week two when she was trying. Not sure where Bernie learned to throw a weigh in, though.

Mark: 235 (-14)
Jay: 258 (-10)
Total: -24 pounds, 4.64%

Maggie: 218 (-3)
Jenn: 229 (-7)
Total: -10 pounds, 2.19%

No suspicions seem to arise here.

Jackie: 214 (-2)
Dan: 264 (-1)
Total: -3 pounds, 0.62%

If ever there were a dead giveaway, this is it. Nothing like Neil gaining 17 pounds last season, but this has been such a strong team that it’s not like some of the girls whose low numbers can just be dismissed. Mark wants revenge.

Group Total: 2.81%

With the 2 pound weight prize, Paul & Kelly need more than 12 pounds lost to survive.

Paul: 260 (-9)
Kelly: 240 (-8)
Total: -17 pounds and -2 pounds, 3.39%

Without the group effort to save them, Paul & Kelly probably would have been toast. Mark & Jay are safe, though, throwing the original plan out the window. With that said, there is one team that is not in the alliance with them and also voted for them at the top of the show: Bette-Sue & Ali. Logically, though, Roger & Trent are a bigger threat.

They vote out Bette-Sue & Ali. They go out on a pretty sour note at the table, but their confessional after that almost makes up for it. Bette-Sue is now down 49 pounds to 212 pounds from her starting weight of 261. Ali is now down to 173 pounds from 234 for a total of 61 pounds.

Next week, it becomes an individual game. Someone will lose their partner.

Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another recap of The Biggest Loser: Couples episode 5, which airs Tuesday at 8/7c on NBC.

The Amazing Race Asia 2 Episode 10

After coming in last three times in a row, Terri & Henry were finally eliminated in The Amazing Race Asia 2 Episode 9, while Rovilson & Marc and Adrian & Collin continued their dominance, placing first and second as per usual. Meanwhile, Paula & Natasha got screwed over by a poorly planned intersection, causing them to have to wait for 5 hours and fall way behind the rest of the pack.

First: Rovilson & Marc (11:44pm)
Second: Adrian & Collin (11:58pm)
Third: Ann & Diane (12:33am)
Fourth: Vanessa & Pamela (12:37am)
Fifth: Paula & Natasha (5:05am)

Teams will head by train to Budapest, Hungary, 443km away

First train (via Vienna, 5:00am, arrives 90 minutes earlier): Adrian & Collin
Second train (direct, 7:30am): Rovilson & Marc, Vanessa & Pamela, Ann & Diane, Paula & Natasha

If it were an airport, they’d have probably been in deep trouble, but since it’s a train station, Paula & Natasha have plenty of time to catch up to the others. Adrian & Collin, with their smart play, are far enough ahead that they should be able to come out on top for a change.

The first destination is Batthyany Square on the Danube River. The clue there tells them to drive to Magyar Farm, 20km outside Budapest. Manual cars. Before the race, learn them, love them, or at the very least be semi-competent driving them. We’ve seen it before, and we’ll see it again. Not good news for some of these teams.

The detour is a choice between pitch or pull. In pitch, teams must stack hay onto a cart and deliver it to a farmer. In pull, teams must milk a goat and collect 200ml of milk. Given the choice of a highly physical task or a task involving animals (notoriously difficult to work with), the physical task typically is the better option.

Pitch: Adrian & Collin, Paula & Natasha, Ann & Diane (after switching from pull), Rovilson & Marc
Pull: Vanessa & Pamela (after seeing the others doing pitch)

Despite their early problems with the manual car, Paula & Natasha manage to arrive in second place. Rovilson & Marc, who are the only team of the four comfortable with the driving, get held up while trying to find the place.

The clue given at the detour is for the road block. They will travel to the nearby town of Visegrad to Canopy Fun Extreme and complete multiple sections of the flying fox course. There’s also some basic addition involved, which may be tougher for some than others, but it could actually be the most difficult part of the whole thing.

Road block (in order of arrival): Adrian, Natasha, Diane, Marc, Pamela

Adrian gets it wrong on his first attempt but is correct the next time and still well ahead. Natasha also gets it wrong her first time. This gives Diane the advantage, or so she thinks. Ann took off to familiarize herself with driving the car. A worthwhile thing to do as we’ve seen from Pamela & Vanessa’s trouble this leg, but just bad timing to do it. Because of this, Marc is allowed to go ahead and do the road block, which is one at a time, first come, first served. Marc is the only one to get it right the first time. Diane is incorrect on her first try. Natasha’s second attempt is correct. Pamela is incorrect on her first try. Diane is correct on her second attempt, as is Pamela.

Teams will proceed to the Hercules Fountain featured on the 1000 forint Hungarian note. From there, they will head to the pitstop for this leg of the race, Salamon Tower Lower Castle, where they must take the correct entrance, which proves a bit of a challenge. While this gives us some drama, it’s still pretty obvious who will win this leg. Rovilson & Marc go the right way and rush into the tower incognito (hidden behind branches). These two are always good for a laugh. Like Adrian & Collin, Pamela & Vanessa also go the wrong way.

First: Adrian & Collin (win Nokia N95 and Nokia N73)
Second: Rovilson & Marc
Third: Pamela & Vanessa
Fourth: Ann & Diane
Fifth: Paula & Natasha (non-eliminated)

This leg was Pamela & Vanessa’s to lose, and beyond the car troubles, Vanessa’s nervous breakdowns are getting old. They didn’t spend a great deal of time on what happened to the other two teams, but it’s obvious they had difficulty finding the Hercules Fountain. Unlike the previous two non-elimination legs, I’m pleased with this one. Paula & Natasha ran a good leg and had just one mishap. They must come in first next time, or they will receive a 30 minute penalty. They’re hoping their allies will come through and yield another team (the moms) if a yield does come up. If nothing else, this leg shows us that nothing’s ever for certain and that one little thing can have a huge impact.

Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another recap of The Amazing Race Asia 2 episode 11.

The Celebrity Apprentice Episode 4

Gene Simmons made perhaps the dumbest decision of anybody on any episode of The Apprentice in The Celebrity Apprentice Episode 3. Whether his decision was an intentional out because he didn’t want to be “stuck” doing this show is up for debate, but at the end of the day, it left Donald Trump with no choice but to fire him. Nely Galan, who I thought should have been fired the week before, became Trump’s primary target, but he didn’t even have the chance to fire her, which he was not happy about. The women are flailing about aimlessly, while multiple men are strong contenders, so now it’s a question of whether the women can overcome their three in a row losing streak.

Nely takes Gene’s move as an act of respect for her. Piers Morgan was just happy to have Gene out of there, as he was certainly good competition.

As the winning project manager last week, Tito Ortiz is able to give a check to his charity, St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital.

This week’s guest judge is Vince McMahon of the WWE. He and Trump had a bet going not too long ago where the loser shaved his head, and Trump unfortunately won. I say shave, start all over, and see what happens anyway.

They will have two hours to sell Broadway tickets. Vincent Pastore and Marilu Henner are the two project managers. Both have experience in the theater. Marilu’s team is real impressed with her, and she takes control early. Of all the women, she’s the only one who stands out as actually having a chance of winning this thing. However, Vinny loses control early, as he’s got the typical strong personalities to deal with.

Stephen Baldwin wants to be the negotiator for their team, but Piers would rather have him on the phone calling his contacts. Instead, Vinny takes Lennox Lewis with him. Marilu picks Omarosa to negotiate with her. Though the negotations are tense, the women get both their top two choices and overall are happy with what they get.

Piers and Stephen continue to argue over the direction to take, and Piers calls him a shallow little man. Piers wants to hit big contacts up; Stephen doesn’t want to waste time with calling people. Despite their arguing, though, they’re picked to work together making calls, and they work together well, laughing at what happened earlier.

Nely’s on a mission to prove she’s not a loser.

Bob Saget steps away from 1 Vs. 100 for a while to make a cameo appearance here. Piers dresses up like King Arthur and is told he’s embarrassing himself, but he doesn’t care because it’s drawing attention.

Omarosa doesn’t trust Jennie at all, and Jennie’s once again been assigned a task that doesn’t let her show anything.

The guys have a scare at the last minute. Piers was able to get a pledge from Richard Branson at Virgin. With 8 minutes remaining, the people with the check have not shown up yet.

With less than two minutes to spare, the drama is over, and they show up with the check. The girls have a similar scare. Nely’s waiting for some money to show up with less than two minutes to spare as well. They don’t make it apparent whether this happened or not.

Vince McMahon raises concern that the women weren’t using the people they had appropriately, and unlike Stephen with his megaphone, they were having difficulty drawing a crowd.

The women made $31,000. The men made $33,000. Not a big blowout like it has been previously, but still another loss by the girls. Apparently, the difference was that Nely’s people didn’t show up until after it ended, and Trump doesn’t like this poor planning. Marilu suggests the problem is that they don’t have the same star power. While I agree that’s part of it, it’s ultimately coming down to skill set and implementing ideas.

Vinny’s charity is The Lustgarten Foundation for Pancreatic Cancer.

Marilu believes that her team doesn’t work together well because people either take a backseat or try to be overpowering. Vince says Carol Alt shouldn’t have been put in the position of being inside doing credit card transactions. She said earlier she wasn’t given a good role. Omarosa picks up on this and says she thinks Carol flies under the radar. Carol responds that Omarosa’s a parasite that’s eating the team apart from the inside.

Nely wants Marilu fired. Yet again Nely’s suggestion makes no sense and will be ignored.

Marilu brings back Jennie Finch and Carol. Yeah, we saw this last week, too. Nely, an obvious target to be fired, isn’t brought back. However, unlike last time, there is actually some chance of the other two being fired. Of the three, though, I don’t see how the blame on this particular task can be placed on either of the other two, so in that respect, I can see the argument for Marilu being fired. Her only argument here is just that she’s the more valuable of the three on the whole.

Vince doesn’t think Jennie has the competitive spirit. Ivanka suggests that without Marilu, the girls have no chance, not that they do have a chance now.

Marilu brought back these two because she worked together well with Omarosa and Nely, even though nobody else works well with Omarosa, or even likes her for that matter.

This is a very quick firing. Trump gets right to the point and says this just isn’t Jennie’s world, and she’s fired. Not a big shock. This was pretty much the theme for the first two firings as well.

Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another live recap of The Celebrity Apprentice Episode 5, which airs Thursday at 9/8c on NBC.

Grand Theft Auto IV Release Date

After multiple delays, what was expected to be the biggest game of last year finally has an official release date that looks like it will stick. GTA 4 will be released on April 29 for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

“We are so excited to be releasing Grand Theft Auto IV,” said Sam Houser, Founder and Executive Producer of Rockstar Games. “We’ve pushed ourselves very hard to make something incredible and hope the game sets a new benchmark for interactive entertainment.”