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Survivor: China Episode 9

In Survivor: China episode 8, we saw yet another genius plan get flushed down the drain, as the group opted to kick out Jean-Robert instead of the highly dangerous James, doing so in a manner that allowed James to know he better watch his back.

Since he’s got two idols and a great shot at winning immunity, James isn’t particularly concerned, but he’s more likely to use those idols given the chance.

Courtney’s excited to have Jean-Robert gone. Hopefully now she can stop obsessing about him and start obsessing about someone else.

Not surprisingly, Denise is even more upset at her old tribe, as nobody decided to tell her that plans for the last tribal council. Any time someone’s intentionally left out of the loop like this, they become a big risk to flip.

Courtney’s getting closer and closer to Frosti, and she’s already proved her allegiance to her old tribe is not of a great deal of importance to her. They’re getting scared, and they should be. Courtney’s been a very emotional player thus far.

Reward challenge is a balancing act, where players will balance balls on drums. The reward is an overnight dinner cruise down a river. Peih-Gee and Erik are captains. Peih-Gee chooses James, who picks Todd, who picks Denise. Erik chooses Frosti, who picks Amanda, who picks Courtney. Erik’s group gets off to an early lead, scoring their first point before the other group even gets past the starting gate. Frosti and Erik are essentially a two man team and take a 2-0 lead, followed by a third point for the win.

Peih-Gee and James get into an argument over their group’s pitiful performance at the reward challenge. She realizes this probably isn’t the smartest way to stay in the game.

Todd says the four people he gets along best with are off on a boat. Interesting observation considering that group only consists of one of his close allies, Amanda. On the reward, all of the four get along really well, so it would make for an interesting alliance. However, Frosti’s not thinking that way. He’s afraid of Erik.

Completely unrelated to the game, Amanda seems to have made a rather unfortunate swimsuit choice. She’s got a blur covering her throughout much of the episode.

The immunity challenge is a memory game. They will have symbols in front of them that they must get in the correct order. It’s a temptation immunity. People can sit out and instead eat burgers, fries, and drinks. Courtney’s eating (good), as are Todd (who’s probably the safest of the bunch), James (I’d go for it if I were him, just to save the hidden ones, unless he really is feeling completely safe despite the three votes last time), and Denise (who knows she’s not safe with these people). Peih-Gee, Frosti, Erik, and the person taking the bullet for her team, Amanda, will participate in the challenge. Erik’s first out. Amanda is out in the next round. Peih-Gee wins immunity. Easy target’s off the options list. Now it’s time to scramble.

Erik and Frosti think they’re the targets tonight. Frosti’s obviously willing to sell Erik out to save himself. I’d think they would have the pull to be able to at least try to get something together on their own and take out someone else. Todd’s afraid of Erik being such a nice guy, but he’s also concerned that Frosti continues to be one of the top performers in both physical and mental challenges. Todd wants to try to convince Courtney to vote out Frosti. Nobody thinks she’ll do it, so he suggests maybe they should get rid of Courtney instead.

James is as comfortable as he let on and doesn’t use his hidden idol.

Votes:
Frosti
Erik
Frosti
Frosti
Frosti
Frosti

Frosti has been voted off the island. While I do think the plot to get rid of James should have been raised again, Frosti has proved to be one of the biggest threats there, so his boot does make sense. Do you think they made the right choice?

But it’s not over yet. They have more business to attend to at tribal council. Whatever that means, we’ll find out next time.

Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another live recap of Survivor: China episode 10 It’s Been Real and It’s Been Fun, which airs Thursday at 8/7c on CBS.

Watch Survivor: China Online

Crowned Cast/Schedule Revealed

Crowned: The Mother of All Pageants will premiere December 12 at 9/8c on The CW, following the season finale of America’s Next Top Model 9. The show will then assume Top Model’s current time slot.

Mother/Daughter Names and Hometowns:

Ada & Christian: Dallas, TX

Andrea & Amanda: Albuquerque, NM

Angela: Orange Park, FL & Tenia: New York, NY

Annette & Alana: Hayworth, CA

Brenda & Heather: Parkersburg, WV

Gina: Ft. Worth, TX & Hollis: New York, NY

Jill: Wilmington, DE & Nicole: Newark, DE

Melinda & Rachelle: Chandler, AZ

Moya & Jenileigh: Duarte, CA

Pamela & Felicia: Tonawanda, NY

Patty: Orlando, FL & Laura: Nashville, TN

Kid Nation Episode 9

In Kid Nation Episode 8, the town got fed up with being bored and had a talent show, blue district girls started to get as lazy as those in other districts, and Divad continued to believe she was worthy of a gold star but nobody else was.

I hadn’t realized this before Laurel mentioned it. 4 of the people who have gotten gold stars are from green district.

The pioneers have a suggestion: mix up the districts. I don’t see what good it would do. I do get Zach’s argument that yellow district could use older people, though. The two oldest council members hate the idea; the other two are willing to give it a shot.

Emily has no interest in doing any work. She says it’s because she hates her district.

Anjay wants not Taylor but someone like Taylor, Emily, primarily because he thinks he needs to prove himself. Zach says his district is just a bunch of girls, including the boys. Anjay wants to break up Blaine and Greg. Laurel doesn’t want to split up her very strong district. The town hates the idea.

Guylan tells his district he needs intellectual people. He invites Nathan (ex-blue) to the district. Anjay invites Emily (ex-red) as planned. Zach takes Blaine (ex-blue). Dumb idea. Greg’s more upset than Blaine, who’s happy to be out of Greg’s shadow. Laurel sticks to her guns and keeps green district the same. The town doesn’t like this.

Red district, as a whole, is upset with Nathan coming over to their team. They make it clear they don’t like him. He says he was happy with blue district but at least seems to be willing to give it a try. At their religious ceremony, Mike realizes he’s a hypocrite for not accepting Nathan just because he’s different. He apologizes and starts to patch things up.

Greg’s back to being an asshat like he was the first few episodes. Now he’s just looking for a fight. Olivia, who hates Anjay even more since he so easily beat her in the election, joins in on the attack.

Laurel says it’s too bad if people don’t like her decision and their own leaders should have stood up for them, too.

The showdown is a rock pulling challenge. Whoever crosses first wins, but in order to get reward, they must get a total of at least one ton. Yellow district’s got some muscle now, and Blaine takes over for them. His buddy Greg’s in control for his team. Blue district easily crosses the line first to become the upper class. Yellow are the merchant class. Green takes third, followed by red in last.

Blue: 480 pounds
Yellow: 460 pounds
Green: 420 pounds
Red: 485 pounds
Total: 1845 pounds

As had been supected, blue took a light load considering they’re the strongest district. Yellow pulled what could be expected of them. I’m not so sure the goal of 2000 pounds was particularly well thought out, as it doesn’t appear it was even possible. Guylan suggests that green was mostly concerned about upper class, which offends Sophia. Considering how far ahead blue was the whole time, this seems like a baseless accusation, though it wouldn’t surprise me if some people were indeed at least trying to get a class higher than what they would have gotten otherwise. She swore at him, and other people said they’d say the same. He gets really upset by this. She later apologizes, which he appreciates but says he wouldn’t run for town council again.

The reward they didn’t win was a choice between beds for everyone or a kid lounge that couldn’t fit everyone.

Hunter gets up early every morning and works while everybody (except Nathan) is sleeping.

Blaine goes around and gets his district working. They’re all sleeping, and he tells them that’s why they’re known as the lazy district. Yellow’s starting to get upset with Zach, who’s getting more of an attitude as time goes by.

Emily, who had been lazy with her old district, is showing some signs of improvement.

Taylor’s friend Randi is upset and wants to leave. As he was on a previous episode, Greg was around to cheer her up, talking to her, carrying her to bed, and tucking her in.

Morgan nominates Blaine, who people are a lot more impressed with now that he’s on his own, for the gold star. Sophia nominates Hunter. The rest of the town is split between those two.

Anjay wonders why he didn’t give Greg away and keep Blaine because Blaine’s behaving so much better.

Randi’s the next one to decide she wants to leave due to homesickness. Taylor blames Zach for this. Huh?

Blaine is awarded the gold star. I’d think it would have made more sense if they picked Hunter and let Blaine sweat it out for another week, but he does seem to be doing a great job now that he’s with yellow district. He’s the only person who approves of the job the council is doing. Most people are upset, including Laurel’s formerly very loyal green district. Everybody’s ready for another election.

DK, Blaine, and Greg throw their hats into the ring. Sophia says “Oh my god. We’re all gonna die.” Michael wants to run against Laurel.

What do you think? Is the town council doing a bad job, or is the town just whining too much?

Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another recap of Kid Nation episode 10 Let Me Talk, which airs Wednesday at 8/7c on CBS.

The Bachelor 11 Episode 8

In The Bachelor 11 episode 7, Brad narrowed down his choices to the final two: Jenni and DeAnna. We’ll find out who the winner is next week, but this week, the women tell all.

We start off with all the cattiness, of which there was no shortage. First up is a montage of people calling others bitches, and of course you can’t do one of those without featuring DeAnna and McCarten. Then there’s Solisa being a tramp.

Jade says she loved everybody… except DeAnna and McCarten. McCarten said they were just more forward/mature. She whines that people were hateful behind her back, but they let her know they couldn’t stand her to her face as well. She appreciates that they wasted so much energy on her.

As if we didn’t spend way too much time on this the first time, it’s now time to relive Hillary’s drama queen exit. She says they should have served her PMS medication or something, and that she just missed the really obvious signs that he just wanted to be friends. She wishes he kept her for one more week and did the hometown date before deciding (would have saved him from Bettina’s family).

Speaking of Bettina, we next take a look at her journey on the show, starting with his initial reaction and no doubt the reason he actually took her to the final three, his immediate physical attraction to probably the best looking woman on this season. Then we look at the worst family visit in the history of family visits, where her entire family hated him because a good looking self-made millionaire isn’t good enough for their little girl who never should have divorced her first husband in the first place. She defends saying her date with him was boring, which I never really understood the need to make it such a big deal to begin with. I suppose that this is a game after all, though. She says that, after watching the show, she’s surprised she even got a rose after the hometown dates. Then she turns this around and says she was turned off by him because of his behavior on that date (huh?). She says he was defensive. Rightfully so.

A member of the studio audience asks what I was wondering: whether Bettina’s hometown date upset Hillary. She responds yes and that her family only wants her to be happy, not caring whether someone owns bars or graduated from college.

Sheena’s up next. She didn’t expect to be eliminated when she was and was devastated by it.

Now it’s Chad’s time to finish up his 15 minutes of fame. I thought the twist was rather lame myself, even if it was amusing to watch. He still likes Sheena, more now than he did before.

Hillary tells Brad she wishes he were a little more up front about them being just friends. I can see where she would think he was dancing around it, even if it was still pretty obvious. He tells her he still cares for her… as a friend.

Bettina asks why the heck he gave her a rose after being so judged by her family. He says it was just about her, not them.

America gets to help choose the next bachelor, by going to ABC’s website or by calling 1-866-739-3150 to suggest someone.

To close off the night, we get a look at the journeys of the two finalists, who he’s been close to since the beginning.

Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another recap of The Bachelor 11 episode 9, which airs Monday at 10/9c on ABC.

Watch The Bachelor 11 Online

The Amazing Race 12 Episode 2

The Amazing Race 12 episode 1 started off the way most seasons of TAR start off. Some of the weaker teams got a stronger than expected start, while a couple of the seemingly stronger teams fell behind, leading to a somewhat surprising, albeit welcome, first boot of Ari & Staella.

Teams depart in the order in which they arrived.

First: Azaria & Hendekea
Second: Kynt & Vyxsin
Third: TK & Rachel
Fourth: Lorena & Jason
Fifth: Nicolas & Donald
Sixth: Shana & Jennifer
Seventh: Ronald & Christina
Eighth: Kate & Pat
Ninth: Marianna & Julia
Tenth: Nathan & Jennifer

The next stop is Amsterdam, nearly 600 miles away. They’ll fly there and then take a train to find a bridge for their next clue. Kynt and Vyxsin say they’re happy being in the dark. Lorena and Jason are getting along… for now. Grandpa Donald is driving below the speed limit, driving his grandson crazy. One of the blondes is concerned about being an idiot. Kate & Pat are the first religious nuts who don’t believe God cares whether they win, so we won’t be stuck with more Weavers.

They arrive at the airport and have to wait around. Ronald & Christina and Kate & Pat get on the Internet and do some research, but in the process, Ronald gives Christina a hard time.

Azaria & Hendekea, Kynt & Vyxsin, TK & Rachel, Shana & Jennifer, Nathan & Jennifer, and Lorena & Jason get on the first flight to Dublin, where they will be able to get on the next flight to Amsterdam without any problems.

Nicolas & Donald, Kate & Pat, and Ronald & Christina must get on standby to get to Amsterdam. Nicolas is pushy and is made to stand aside at the ticket counter. Ronald takes issue with it and gives Nicolas grief. Nicolas just smiles at him and lets him talk. Only one of these teams are able to get on the first flight with the rest, Nicolas & Donald.

Marianna & Julia are left behind and don’t make the first flight, so they’re an hour and a half behind everybody else.

Azaria & Hendekea run onto the train and pay there. The others get tickets first and aren’t able to get on and must wait 10 minutes.

The detour is hunt it or hoist it. In hunt it, they search for two bikes with the color pattern that’s on the clue, normally an extremely frustrating concept. Hoist it is tying knots until they’re safe, then hosting things like TV sets to a window above them.

Hoist: TK & Rachel, Lorena & Jason, Shana & Jennifer, Kynt & Vyxsin, Nathan & Jennifer, Ronald & Christina (later switch to bikes)
Hunt: Azaria & Hendekea, Nicolas & Donald, Marianna & Julia, Kate & Pat

Lorena & Jason finish the detour first and make it look easy. Kynt & Vyxsin get done pretty easily, but the other two couples just argue with each other. Shana & Jennifer outdo most of the men hoisting the furniture. When Jennifer switches with Nathan and does the hoisting instead of him, they finished next. Hendekea & Azaria finish in 5th. TK finally gets it through his stubborn head and switches with Rachel, who like Jennifer is also able to do it where her partner failed. Nicolas & Donald are next. Christina’s already getting fed up with her father. It’s a fight for last between the last three teams. Marianna & Julia are 8th. Ronald & Christina are 9th. Kate & Pat are bringing up the rear.

We’re focusing on a pretty destructive dynamic for quite some time here between father and daughter Ronald & Christina. His theory that being polite to people apparently only applies to airline personnel. Other racers, including his own daughter, are fully exempt from that theory. He lets her know he’s not going to be all rosy and that she disappointed him. She asks him to change the fact that he’s hard on her.

The road block is ditch vaulting, where they will use a pole to successfully get across a 12 foot irrigation ditch. Jason finishes pretty quickly to retain their lead. Shana is next, followed by Jennifer who gets hateful about the all girl team that did it faster. Rachel finishes fourth, followed closely by Kynt. Donald says he thinks he can get across, which scares Nicolas, and then Donald strips down to his underwear, even more cause for being scared. Hendekea finishes sixth. Donald finally just barely gets across and is in seventh. Marianna & Julia finish quickly in eighth. Christina seems to be making some jumps just as well as the others, but they’re not counting. Ronald continues to give her a hard time. She finishes in 9th, and his immediate thought is that he could have done it better.

Teams must ride a bakfiet to the next pitstop.

First: Lorena & Jason (win sportbikes with three wheels)
Second: Nathan & Jennifer
Third: Shana & Jennifer
Fourth: Kynt & Vyxsin
Fifth: Azaria & Hendekea
Sixth: TK & Rachel
Seventh: Mariana & Julia
Eighth: Nicolas & Donald
Ninth: Ronald & Christina
Tenth: Kate & Pat (eliminated)

This is more like what I was expecting. The weak links settled down toward the bottom of the pack. Ronald seriously needs to snap out of it if he hopes to survive much longer.

Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another recap of The Amazing Race 12 episode 3, which airs Sunday at 8/7c on CBS.

The Biggest Loser 4 Episode 9

In The Biggest Loser 4 Episode 8, we found out that, in addition to Neil’s weight gain, there were a couple other people who claimed to also be involved, but they just didn’t make it blatantly obvious. Isabeau whined nonstop about Neil’s actions, then she herself didn’t lose any weight on purpose. In the end, David was sent home.

This week is green week on The Biggest Loser. They’re all going to be doing some recycling, starting with their teams. They will be dropping down to duos. The challenge here isn’t a temptation, just a guessing game of how many calories are in a large meat pizza and a 32 ounce soda. Pizza’s deceptively high in calories (in addition to the 9 hour insulin spike it causes), so this can be an easy thing to underestimate. The person closest to the correct answer picks the first duo, then they both pick the second duo, then the next duo picks the third duo, then they pick the fourth duo, then there’s a last duo that’s stuck with each other.

Bill: 2145
Nicole: 3240
Kae: 2306
Julie: 2790
Hollie: 4079
Bryan: 3800
Amy: 4024
Isabeau: 3475
Ryan: 3460
Neil: 3496

Actual: 3253 calories

A high number, albeit lower than I would have expected. Nicole, who went with 3240, is the person who is closest. The teams are:

Nicole & Neil
Ryan & Isabeau
Julie & Bill
Hollie & Bryan
Kae & Amy

Neil wanted to protect Ryan but not too much. Isabeau wanted to pick a team that was an all black team. Julie and Bill wanted to protect Hollie. Kae got stuck with Amy, who was most vocal about sending her home, and wasn’t happy.

In keeping with the green week theme, they will not use machines that run on electricity this week.

While Kae’s out running, Amy’s on the couch sleeping. Bob immediately gets concerned about this pairing as well.

Kim’s upset because David’s gone, and she knows Bryan’s in serious danger. And to think just last week Jillian was going on and on about how the black team was being ganged up on. Kim’s very pleased with Bryan’s training but is frustrated with his nutrition. He’s only eating 1200 calories a day and three meals.

Kae’s concerns over her new partner continue to weigh on her. Bob decides to try to lighten the mood a bit, and he puts an X on her back.

Bob takes his team out of the gym and has them climb a huge hill instead. Jillian and Kim stay in the gym but just do things that don’t require electricity.

They show up at a challenge and are greeted by containers of food they used to eat a lot of, like 180 pizza boxes for Bill and Julie. Next to them are two trucks. What’s in the trucks is a much more shocking reality check. They are filled with the soda cans they used to go through. Not surprisingly, they all used to consume soda in excess, which is nothing but a bunch of empty calories. It’s 148,000 cans, which amounts to 2.6 tons and is a lifetime worth of cans for them. Of course, this can’t be done without being heavy on the lesson side, as it’s a reminder to them that next time they have a can they should find the nearest recycling bin. They are given half an hour to recycle their cans. Whoever recycles the most will win. The prize? Brand new hybrid SUV’s. Julie tells the story about how in order to become a stay-at-home mom, she had to get rid of a car. At the halfway mark, Bill & Julie are in first with 41 pounds. Kae & Amy, who are working as a team rather than each one individually, are in second at 40 pounds. Hollie & Bryan are at 35 pounds. Nicole & Neil are out of it at 22 pounds, with Isabeau and Ryan bringing up the rear at 20 pounds.

Isabeau & Ryan: 43.2 pounds
Neil & Nicole: 47.6 pounds
Hollie & Bryan: 75.4 pounds
Kae & Amy: 75.8 pounds
Bill & Julie: 98.4 pounds

Bill & Julie easily win the new vehicles. Black team has to drag Jillian down the hallway to see the prizes because she doesn’t want to know anything that doesn’t have to do with the weigh in. She’s impressed but still wants immunity.

Bryan expresses concern to Kim that he can’t eat when he’s full because that’s how he got fat to begin with. She tells him to just trust her.

Kae: 163 pounds (-5)
Amy: 245 pounds (-9)
Total: -14 pounds (3.32%)

Hollie: 212 pounds (-6)
Bryan: 278 pounds (-11)
Total: -17 pounds (3.35%)

Nicole: 229 pounds (-6)
Neil: 321 pounds (-18)
Total: -24 pounds (4.18%)

Last week, Neil’s 33 pound weight loss wasn’t particularly impressive since it was to be expected with the 17 pound weight gain the week before, but this week’s loss following that is very strong and puts him at the 100 pound mark, making him the 5th person in the show’s history to lose that much weight before going home.

Isabeau: 246 pounds (-9)
Ryan: 302 pounds (-6)
Total: -15 pounds (2.66%)

Bill: 242 pounds (-9)
Julie: 180 pounds (-6)
Total: -15 pounds (3.43%)

Despite Isabeau slacking last week, Isabeau and Ryan are below the yellow line, with Ryan putting up the lowest percentage of weight loss of anyone this week. Isabeau tells black team she trusts nobody, a slap in the face to the people who have been loyal to her all along.

Votes:
Kae & Amy: Ryan
Bryan & Hollie: Ryan
Neil & Nicole: Ryan

The fourth vote was probably for Ryan as well. Ryan returns home to his newborn baby. Today, Ryan weighs 265 pounds, down 109 pounds from his starting weight of 374.

Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another recap of The Biggest Loser 4 episode 10, which airs Tuesday at 8/7c on NBC.

Survivor South Africa: Malaysia Episode 12

I’m not sure whether Angie ever actually figured out which side she was on in Survivor South Africa: Malaysia episode 11, but in the end, she won immunity, so she was safe from everybody turning on her. Angela followed her buddy Hein out of the game.

Amanda hasn’t lost hope yet. She continues to scramble, questioning Lorette as to why the alleged alliance is really just Grant and Angie calling the shots, as it has been. At this point, for someone to take on the swing vote would be smart, as it’s final three rather than final four. Of course, there is the added danger of the jury being heavily stacked in Amanda’s favor, though a 5 person jury detracts from that. Lorette and Angie remain sick of each other. Now Mandla’s joining in. Angie hopes they’ll (continue to) be stupid enough to keep her around to honor their word.

Reward challenge is an interesting one. They will hang and support their own body weight while trying to remember a sequence of numbers. When all of them drop, they’ll then need to record those numbers. All of them will start the memory part of the challenge at the same time, so the longer they can hang on, the longer they will have to memorize and also the less time they will have to forget. Reward is a visit from family and friends. Mandla’s mom and sister, Angie’s friends, Lorette’s husband and best friend, Grant’s wife and best friend, and Amanda’s mom and sister are all there to greet them. And for some reason it’s sponsored by KFC. The winner will get a feast with their loved ones at camp.

Grant drops first, closely followed by Angie, Amanda, and then Lorette. A buff Mandla obviously hangs in the longest. Angie barely bothered to fill it out, not even making an effort to put something random. She’s first out. Amanda is out after another two numbers. Lorette is out after the first number of the second line. Grant’s next out, and Mandla wins reward. The thing about Mandla is that, despite how much of a physical threat he is, everybody’s so caught up in personality clashes they’re not even concerned about him. Everybody is happy to have someone new to talk with and seems to appreciate having Mandla’s family there.

The tribe has run out of rice and tapioca. Angie considers the hunt for new food sources a waste of energy. While they’re searching, Mandla says “I’ll let you into a secret” to Angie. Then he sees Lorette standing right there. So no secret is shared. Lorette gets (more) suspicious of Angie. In the process, Grant gets dragged into it. Angie ultimately shakes Lorette’s hand and promises to take her to the final four. Mandla offers his immunity idol to Lorette as a gesture to gain her trust, but she doesn’t want it.

The immunity challenge is called the abdominator. They are stretched out across a rack, hands on one set of bars, feet on another. After the first person drops out, they will move their hands one bar forward, then they will move their feet up further after the next person it out, then they will move their hands out further after the last. Grant’s out first. He is followed by Angie. Amanda goes to switch positions and drops down in the process, so she also is eliminated. Angie starts to root for Lorette during the challenge. Lorette asks Mandla to throw the challenge for her, and he does. A little too obviously, though, as Angie knows what happened.

Angie asks Mandla if he knows who he’s voting for. He says he hasn’t decided. She knows that means it’s between her and Amanda. Angie feels pretty safe because she got Lorette’s word, and she feels this is Survivor: Brady Bunch, where nobody wants to actually play the game.

Mandla uses the hidden idol because this is the last time he can use it.

Votes:
Amanda
Angie
Amanda
Angie
Angie

As much as I’ve disliked Angie, I was starting to like her. She and Grant may not exactly be playing the game well, but at least they’re playing, whereas Lorette and Mandla have just been along for the ride until now. Like he did with Lisa, Grant again found himself backing the wrong horse for too long.

Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another recap of Survivor South Africa: Malaysia episode 13, and don’t forget our continuing coverage of Survivor: China.