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That didn’t take long. Following a strong early opening of its first season, NBC has announced that it has picked up American Gladiators for a second season. Additional details will be announced at a later date.
The remake of the show from two decades ago has taken off strongly. Ratings in adults 18-49 have been among the best shows on TV, and overall, American Gladiators has been NBC’s best new show since Heroes.
TK & Rachel got hung up by a bad flight choice in The Amazing Race 12 Episode 9, but they were not eliminated, keeping hope alive that the final three won’t completely suck. That said, they were three hours behind everybody else and will need to complete a speed bump as well.
We’re in for a rare treat tonight. The show’s actually starting on time.
Teams depart in the order in which they arrived.
First: Ronald & Christina (7:02am)
Second: Nathan & Jennifer (7:15am)
Third: Nicolas & Donald (7:21am)
Fourth: TK & Rachel (10:18am)
The first stop is the Umeda Sky Building and the floating garden, an observatory. Hours of operation are 10am, evaporating the majority of the lead.
Once there, they’re told they’ll be travelling over 1000 miles to Taipei, Taiwan.
Nicolas says, “No competitors are left. It’s a bunch of pansies.” Yeah, pretty much.
Meanwhile, Nathan’s telling us his thoughts about heading to Taiwan. “I know absolutely nothing about Taiwan, except… I think Thai food is pretty good.” Uh…
At the airport, they see the first flight’s at 1pm. Ronald & Christina get the flight. Nathan & Jennifer continue to have their nervous breakdown and are unable to book that flight.
TK & Rachel for the first time are arguing, and it’s really not helping them any. His instincts are right, but she’s not sure why they’re going where they going. While they’re discussing it, they walk right past the clue.
First flight: Ronald & Christina
Second flight: Nicolas & Donald, Nathan & Jennifer
Third flight: TK & Rachel
When they arrive in Taiwan, Nathan & Jennifer go to exchange their money before getting in line. When they get back, they see that TK & Rachel are caught up with them. Jen overreacts as per usual.
Jennifer says she’s got hatred in her blood. We noticed.
Teams will go to Taichung by high speed rail and then to Jiji by taxi. All teams make the same train, with Nicolas & Donald just barely limping their way along to catch up.
The road block is to ride in stunt vehicles. This includes being suspended 25 feet in the air on a giant teeter totter, then driving under water for 17 seconds.
Road block (in order of arrival): Ronald, Rachel, Nathan, Donald
After the road block, TK & Rachel hit their speed bump. They must go just over one mile to participate in a traditional ritual. They’ll dress the part, run through thousands of firecrackers, and be doused in water. Probably doesn’t take them too long, but it is enough to put them in last.
The next stop is GK Teahouse in Taipei. When they arrive at the high speed rail station, the machine won’t let them get the 7:36 one even though they show up a few minutes before, so they must wait until 8:00, with the exception of Ronald & Christina, who do get on the first train. Christina’s language experience continues to come in handy as it did in Japan.
TK & Rachel use what they learned earlier, getting tickets the automated way instead of in line, which helps them to get on the same train as the others. Jen hates them even more.
At the teahouse, they’ll need to drink a cup of tea before they can leave. Unsurprisingly, Rachel burns her mouth. From there, they must head to Gong Guan Night Market to get a clue from a clown.
The detour is a choice between fire or earth. In fire, teams must write messages of luck on lanterns and send 20 of them off in the sky. In earth, they’ll walk on a 220 foot path of jagged stones (it’s supposed to relieve stress).
Earth: Ronald & Christina, Nicolas & Donald, TK & Rachel, Nathan & Jennifer
The pitstop for this leg of the race is Chang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall. The second and third place teams take cabs. Nathan & Jennifer get advice to go to the subway instead. He questions the decision, but she pretty much tells him to shut up. Then she wants him to be a man and make the decisions. He says he can’t stand her because she’s always freaking out. Ya think?
First: Ronald & Christina (win a trip to Curacao)
Second: TK & Rachel
Third: Nicolas & Donald
Fourth: Nathan & Jennifer (eliminated)
As much as I think Nathan & Jennifer are one of the stronger teams, her inability to deal with stress has been crippling. As a parting thought, she says they killed their relationship on the race.
Still, it is a fairly weak final three, although TK & Rachel are a fairly strong team.
Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another live recap of The Amazing Race 12 episode 11, which airs Sunday at 8/7c on CBS, when we will find out who the winner is.
Here are some interviews of the Survivor: Micronesia Cast. Video after the jump.
Terri & Henry finally finished last in The Amazing Race Asia 2 Episode 7, but they were just as disappointed as anybody else that they’re still in the race, as their heart’s not in it any more. Not that I’m convinced it was in it before. Rovilson & Marc and Adrian & Collin, meanwhile, continued their dominance, taking first and second as usual.
Teams depart in the order in which they arrived, with the exception of Ann & Diane and Paula & Natasha, who for some reason have switched places with Ann & Diane departing fifth, though it could just be another production error. Terri & Henry are just over 4 hours behind.
First: Rovilson & Marc (7:48am)
Second: Adrian & Collin (8:07am)
Third: Pamela & Vanessa (9:47am)
Fourth: Paula & Natasha (10:04am)
Fifth: Ann & Diane (10:26am)
Sixth: Terri & Henry (12:07pm)
The next stop is the Old Opera House in Frankfurt, Germany, 8088km away. Rovilson never knew Germany was a part of Asia but doesn’t care as long as he gets the airline with the hottest flight attendants. When the boys arrive at the airport, the first and second flights are both fully booked, but both teams are able to get on standby.
The teams all leave Terri & Henry some money to get to the airport. This is one of the reasons the mugging twist is so stupid. By the time they arrive, though, there’s not much time left to get good tickets, as even the teams that have been there for hours have been scrambling.
First flight (direct by 5pm): Rovilson & Marc
Second flight (arriving at 5:35pm): Natasha & Paula
Third flight (arriving at 6:35pm): Pamela & Vanessa, Adrian & Collin, Ann & Diane
Fourth flight (via Hong Kong, no arrival time given): Terri & Henry
They’ve taken the flight to Frankfurt merely to catch a train to the Charles Bridge in Prague, Czech Republic. The next train is a night train at 11:38pm.
Rovilson & Marc aren’t happy that they’re going to lose their big lead, but they take advantage of it. First, they see the sights. Then, Rovilson earns back some of the cash they spent by pole dancing.
Ann & Diane are trying to convince everybody they meet they’re having an emergency. Most people fall for it, too.
Paula & Natasha, Rovilson & Marc, and Pamela & Vanessa are working on an alliance. The first target appears to be Ann & Diane… so pretty much nothing’s changed from before.
Train 1: Rovilson & Marc, Adrian & Collin, Pamela & Vanessa, Paula & Natasha, Ann & Diane
Train 2: Terri & Henry
I thought they were trying to fool us with the editing, but Terri & Henry are so far behind, they can’t pull it off. When they’re catching the train in the daylight, it’s clear there’s nothing ahead that can save them.
Teams must proceed to the Little Shop at Karlova Street, a puppet shop. The hours of operation are 11:00, which means that once again Rovilson & Marc will lose their lead while the other teams catch up to them. Eventually, Paula & Natasha catch up to them first, and they pinky swear not to yield each other. Oh boy. I saw the pinky swear in Big Brother 5. Nakomis whined about it being broken for weeks on end. By the time the shop opens, four teams are waiting, with Pamela & Vanessa (having searched for the clue for hours) and Terri & Henry being behind the pack. The bridge task is clearly tough, as most of the teams walk up and down the bridge for hours. You know what that means. When they get there, Terri loses it, starts screaming, sits on the ground and pouts, and does whatever else is necessary to draw attention to herself, all the while wasting her team’s time.
From there, teams will head to the Kinsky Palace in Old Town Square. Okay already. Can we get an actual task instead of teams going from place to place killing times and getting clues?
The road block is to dress up like a knight and rescue a damsel in distress.
Road block (in order of arrival): Marc, Adrian, Paula, Ann, Vanessa, Henry
Some of the women aren’t too comfortable in the knight gear, but Marc’s having no trouble jogging in it. He finds the damsel first but leads Adrian right to her in the process.
Paula & Natasha and Pamela and Vanessa are having trouble driving. Don’t they know by now that you don’t go on TAR without knowing how to drive a stick?
From there, teams head by train to Beroun, where they will get a clue at the town square by searching for someone who has it on their Nokia phone, which as a bonus has a message from home. Most people are thrilled by the messages, but Ann’s completely focused on the race and mostly concerned that she knows her husband is quite long winded.
Train 1: Rovilson & Marc, Adrian & Collin, Ann & Diane
Train 2: Paula & Natasha
Train 3: Pamela & Vanessa
Train 4: Terri & Henry
The detour is a choice between blow or bow. In blow, each team member must cut a design on the bottom of a class cut. In bow, each team member must hit a target with a crossbow.
Bow: Rovilson & Marc, Adrian & Collin, Ann & Diane, Pamela & Vanessa, Terri & Henry
Blow: Paula & Natasha
The pitstop for this leg of the race is Karlstejn Castle, 30km south of Prague.
First: Rovilson & Marc (win $5,000)
Second: Adrian & Collin
Third: Ann & Diane
Fourth: Paula & Natasha
Fifth: Vanessa & Pamela
Sixth: Terri & Henry (non-eliminated)
Oh. My. God. It’s like cockroaches that just won’t die. Two NEL’s in a row on legs they’re just getting blown away in. This is getting more and more pitiful. At least they’re in better spirits than they were the last time, though. If When they don’t come in first next time, they’ll get a 30 minute time penalty.
Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another recap of The Amazing Race Asia 2 episode 9, and don’t forget our live blogs of The Amazing Race 12.
Variety reports that The Bachelorette will be returning for a fourth season, with a possible summer debut. This will mark the show’s first airing since 2005.
The Bachelor 12, meanwhile, will be making its appearance in March.
Omarosa was as bad as we expected her to be in The Celebrity Apprentice Episode 1. So of course, she didn’t get fired, despite sending her team off to die from the very first minute she took the project manager role. Instead, Tiffany Fallon was fired, supposedly because she didn’t call Hugh Heffner and ask him to buy a hot dog.
Omarosa and Carol Alt make a pact that what happens in the boardroom stays in the boardroom. Piers Morgan doesn’t buy it. Omarosa calls him an alcoholic for drinking some wine. He calls her a mutant and again makes fun of how she did on season 1.
Stephen Baldwin brings his mother’s breast cancer foundation a check for the total of the previous task, $69,000.
This week’s task is to create a 30 second commercial for the Pedigree Adoption Drive, created because 4 million dogs are put into shelters yearly.
Nely Galan and Gene Simmons are chosen as project managers. Gene says he’s ruthless and will fire anybody, including Donald Trump.
Nely starts off the meeting with stretching, deep breaths, seeing bright lights, and holding hands. Alrighty then. They first sit with the client, and one thing they’re told is celebrities are fine, but what they really need is stories about people with their pets.
Gene considers meeting someone from Pedigree to be a waste of time. Stephen Baldwin takes charge because he tells us he’s been in film for 20 years. He wants Lennox Lewis to be the star of the commercial, and they nominate Baldwin as the director. The guys believe celebrity’s important, perhaps more important than the pets.
Ivanka, whose usefulness in the show I have still yet to figure out, shows up to meet with the guys. Gene starts off by hitting on her. Then he rushes her out of the room and insults her by asking her if she’s going to share the information with the girls just because she’s a woman. Yeah, I expect some serious whining to come from her about that.
Piers wants to head down to the shelter. Stephen shoots this idea down, which upsets Piers because he believes Gene and Stephen are trying to control everything. Instead, they head outside in the streets of New York and try to shoot a scene. The crowds and honking horns prevent them from getting anything done.
Omarosa knows what she needs to do to keep from being fired. It’s not about performing well. It’s about skating from doing anything or taking responsibility (then being as obnoxious as possible in the boardroom should someone point a finger your way). So she avoids being involved in the creative.
Nely doesn’t believe Nadia Comaneci, who’s essentially been assigned to be a gopher, is any good.
Vincent Pastore wants to see the commercial before they leave. Gene doesn’t want to hear it and instead wants to go with Stephen and edit it themselves without input.
On the contrary, the women get together as a group to edit the commercial. At times, this produces too much potential for conflicting viewpoints (i.e. a couple of the women find the dog unappealing… and they pick now to say it instead of doing so before or at some point during the shooting), but Nely keeps things reasonably under control. Marilu, who directed the video, is also taking a lead role in the editing process.
After sitting around for a while, Piers, Lennox, and Tito Ortiz barge into the editing room because they want to know what’s going on. They’re promptly thrown out and not happy about it.
The women focus on the dogs with little effort at showing any celebrities. The men show Lennox prominently but have a good story with a voiceover by Trace Adkins to go along with it. Pedigree is impressed by both commercials but feels one of the commercials is much stronger.
After Trump mentions that Pedigree felt slighted by the men not taking some face time before shooting the commercial, Ivanka starts off the boardroom by saying “Wah! Wah! Wah!” as expected. Gene apologizes for what he said.
The men win pretty easily, and it’s well deserved. The ad the women did wasn’t necessarily bad, but as with last week, they just didn’t live up to the standard the men set. Better script and a better concept.
The women are criticized for having too many dogs, which is true. Too much squeezed into too little time. A theme for them, as they also did (wasted time on) radio and Internet ads, when all they had to do was a TV commercial.
As with last week, there is criticism over lack of celebrity. Marilu did the voiceover, but there’s concern nobody really recognizes her voice.
Jennie Finch reluctantly suggests Nadia (because Nadia wasn’t really given a task) or Carol Alt (have we seen her at all this episode?) should be fired. Carol picks Nadia as well. Despite Trump’s clear attempt to indicate that a good choice to bring back would be Marilu, Nely chooses Carol and Nadia. Nobody can figure out why Carol’s being brought back, but nobody’s real impressed with Nadia.
The judges question how Nely got so far off course considering this is what she does for a living. Trump wants to know why Marilu wasn’t brought back and says Carol definitely won’t be fired. Like last week with Tiffany, Nadia’s having difficulty fighting for herself. Before she can even spit out much of a defense, not that it appears she has one anyway other than that she wasn’t assigned a real task, Trump fires Nadia because he doesn’t see her as a leader.
Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another live recap of The Celebrity Apprentice Episode 3, which airs Thursday at 9/8c on NBC.
The Biggest Loser 5 Episode 1 saw the elimination of someone who stole the spot of someone who actually wanted to be there, Lynn, with his daughter Jenni being dragged down with him. 8 teams weighed in with losses of over 5%, with half of them above 6%.
Remember last week when the first challenge was a competition to get the trainer the teams preferred? Yeah, never mind that. Jillian and Bob have teamed up and will train people together. Partly because none of us could tell who was on which side anyway (seriously, which trainer’s team went home last week?). Partly because they plan to gather ’round the campfire and sing Kumbaya.
The biggest drama of the first training session besides that is Bette-Sue falling on the treadmill and yet still getting back up and continuing.
Now it’s time to disgust the players by showing them how much fat/sugar/calories/etc. they eat.
The difference between Neill and Amanda continues to be a topic of discussion. It was no surprise that she lost more weight than he did last week. As before, Jillian gets on his case. She asks why he’s there. He says to get thin. Wrong answer. True but wrong answer. This time, she won’t let anybody else leave the gym until he walks for an hour.
For the challenge, the teams get massive seesaws, on which they must go up and down 100 times. The reward is calling cards for calls home. After about a dozen reps, Trent is out to avoid being injured. As with last week, Jay & Mark are going head to head with Bernie & Brittany for the win, with Jay & Mark a bit ahead. Jay & Mark manage to pull out the win, a bit ahead of Bernie & Brittany, and Curtis & Mallory a bit behind them. The second and third place teams continue until they hit 100. After they get their prize, Alison tells them they can choose three other teams who will receive calls home as well.
Curtis & Mallory, Trent & Roger, and Amanda & Neill are their choices. While I get their reasoning about picking people with young kids, it’s a low blow not to give one set of cards to the team that was right behind them, while giving two of the sets of cards to the teams that performed the worst (granted, Trent & Roger at least had a reasonable excuse for performing poorly, while Neill just simply doesn’t try). Allegedly, giving the card to Neill is supposed to give him a wakeup call. Demonstrating that he’s been awakened, Neill tells Jillian he’s going to use his call in the middle of the workout. She pulls him outside to talk to him one on one, taking a kinder, gentler approach than she normally does. I say just slap him upside the head.
Damn local NBC affiliate decided to waste about 10 minutes of my time with something I didn’t care about. Apparently there’s an election going on or… something. So I missed a few minutes before finally deciding I had to switch to the other NBC to see if they were back on or not.
Alison asks one member from every team to get up and leave. It’s time for the first temptation. There’s a feast, and they’ll have 4 minutes to eat as much as they want. The first set of people will go first, then the second set will go later. The team that eats the most will win $5,000.
Of the first set, most people just walk around sniffing stuff. Amanda says she’s not going to eat and hopes Neill does the same. Paul says he’s got about 900 calories left in his daily allotment that he hasn’t eaten yet. Should have kept it to himself because he convinces Mark to do the same. Mallory grabs some M&M’s.
Mallory ate 210 calories, while Curtis didn’t eat anything.
Paul ate 912 calories, while Kelly didn’t eat anything.
Mark ate 925 calories, while Jay didn’t eat anything.
None of the other teams ate anything.
Paul blew it, giving Mark the win. Needless to say, Jillian and Bob are upset.
Roger: 340 (-3)
Trent: 401 (-6)
Total: -9 pounds, 1.20%
Bernie: 261 (-5)
Brittany: 210 (-1)
Total: -6 pounds, 1.26%
Paul: 283 (-3)
Kelly: 257 (-1)
Total: -4 pounds, 0.74%
Jay: 275 (-5)
Mark: 261 (-7)
Total: -12 pounds, 2.19%
Maggie: 227 (-2)
Jenn: 240 (-2)
Total: -4 pounds, 0.85%
Bette-Sue: 239 (-6)
Ali: 212 (-3)
Total: -9 pounds, 1.96%
Jackie: 223 (-8)
Dan: 277 (-8)
Total: -16 pounds, 3.10%
Curtis: 356 (-3)
Mallory: 204 (+1)
Total: -2 pounds, 0.36%
Neill: 298 (-6)
Amanda: 190 (no change)
Total: -6 pounds, 1.21%
Brutal second week. 6 of the remaining people lost two pounds or less, up to and including one who gained weight, something we normally don’t see for at least a few weeks. The women in particular had a pretty disastrous showing. There were some bright spots, though. Jackie & Dan are proving to be a force to be reckoned with. Mark & Jay continue to be very strong. A very surprisingly strong team is Bette-Sue & Ali.
The two teams below the yellow line are Curtis & Mallory and Paul & Kelly, two of the three teams with members who gave into temptation. While they may try to play this up, they didn’t spend much time on the fact that Mark lost 5 pounds, regardless of having won the temptation. Curtis & Mallory seem to be the more dangerous team of the two, and it would be smart to get rid of them while they can, though I’d expect most of the teams to be closer to them than Paul & Kelly.
Votes:
Neill & Amanda: Paul & Kelly
Bette-Sue & Ali: Curtis & Mallory
Roger & Trent: Paul & Kelly
Mark & Jay: Paul & Kelly
Maggie & Jenn: Curtis & Mallory
Jackie & Dan: Curtis & Mallory
Bernie & Brittany: Curtis & Mallory
The message seems to be that Paul & Kelly aren’t yet ready to go home, whereas Curtis & Mallory are much stronger and more likely to succeed should they go home. An accurate assessment. A classy team to be getting booted, though.
Curtis is down now from 381 pounds to 298; Mallory is down from 217 to 184.
Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another recap of The Biggest Loser: Couples episode 3, which airs Tuesday at 8/7c on NBC.
As with last year’s show, Big Brother 9 will feature content on CBS’ sister network Showtime. Big Brother: After Dark will air live feed footage from midnight to 3AM every night starting February 12 on SHO2.