The Amazing Race: Japan & Vietnam With A Way Too Soon Elimination

The 2 hour first episode of the new season of The Amazing Race was both the best and the worst that can I remember.

I did not like the elimination challenge right at the start, before they'd even left the Los Angeles River basin. The challenge to find a license plate that matched the clue seemed easy enough. But it seemed so cruel to kick someone off the show just as it barely began.

You go through so many steps to get picked to be on The Amazing Race. It'd be so exciting to get on the show and be ready to race and then a few minutes later find yourself heading home would be so not good.

But, having said that, of all the pairs, I'm glad it was Eric and Lisa who got the early boot. Eric acted way too sure of himself in the intro, a sure sign of coming trouble. I just did not expect Eric's doom to come so soon.

Now, the rest of the opening episode I liked. The first leg, in Tokyo, was among the best I remember. An out of control Japanese game show Roadblock where Wasabi Bombs spun on a Roulette Wheel. Then teams herded 20 Japanese tourists through crowded streets to the Pit Stop.

The Amazing Race always finds some interesting pairings. This time, so far, the most interesting seem to be Zev & Justin, one of whom has Asperger's Syndrome. Maria & Tiffany, both of whom are professional poker players, but, at first, til caught, lied to the other teams about being saints helping homeless people. Sam & Dan, gay brothers. That's a reality show first. Brian & Ericka, the first interracial team on the race, with Ericka being the 2004 Miss America. And then there is Marcy & Ron, an older couple, with Marcy having a very young spirt. I almost forgot Mika & Canaan. They are a good-looking pair, with Canaan, 26, telling us that he is keeping his purity until he's a married man. Very noble. And a bit disturbing.

Leaving Tokyo, from a non-elimination round where the poker players came in last, partly due to losing some of their tourists on the way to the Pit Stop, incurring a 2 hour penalty and a Speed Bump, all the teams were heading to Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam.

Upon arrival in Vietnam the teams had to find a bus station to get a 2 hour bus ride to a village called Cai Be, then race on foot to the Ben Tau Du Lich boat docks, where they had to take sampans out into the Mekong Delta to gather mud to fertilize trees. It did not look pleasant.

Meanwhile, the now outted poker players, Maria & Tiffany got past their Speed Bump of making a bowl of Pho, then headed out on a sampan to get mud.

The final task before the Pit Stop was a Roadblock involving herding 150 ducks into a pen. Some had no trouble with this. Others could not control their ducks. Tiffany moved herself & Maria ahead of other teams by getting her ducks herded quickly.

The Pit Stop was found by racing on foot to Cho Cai Be market on the Mekong River and finding the dock for the Bassac III, the Riverboat Pit Stop. The gay bros, Sam & Dan, left the ducks in 1st place, but they quickly lost their lead when they started bickering while trying to find the market.

In the end, the father/son team from Montana, Gary & Matt, made it to the mat first. The Harlem Globetrotters, Flight Time & Big Easy ( I forgot to mention them as one of the funny/interesting teams ) came in 2nd. Sam & Dan stopped bickering long enough to come in 3rd. Maria & Tiffany managed to come in #7.

Soon it was down to Miss America & Brian and Garret & Jessica. Jessica had more trouble with her ducks, so Ericka & Brian made it to the mat in 10th place, with Phil telling Garret & Jessica that he was sorry, but they'd been eliminated from the race.

I don't know where the racers go next. Vietnam is being very interesting. The racers arrived in Ho Chi Minh City to everything being horribly flooded. I don't remember seeing such a thing on The Amazing Race before.

Hell's Kitchen: Suzanne Finally Sent Home

Sometimes I can't quite tell why someone is so thoroughly disliked by their fellow reality show castmates. In the case of Suzanne, on Hell's Kitchen, I fully got how annoying she was. She had really worn out her welcome and really should have been gone sooner.

The latest episode started with the 5 remaining chefs being told they were to cook their most visually stunning dish. To be judged by fine diners from Bon Appetit, which is the world's most popular culinary magazine.

The Bon Appetit judges picked Ariel's John Dory and Kevin's sea bass as the best looking. Then Chef Ramsay and the magazine's Chief Editor, Barabara Fairchild did a taste test and decided both Ariel's and Kevin's good looking food were winners.

So, Kevin and Ariel got to join Chef Ramsay and Ms. Fairchild for a Bon Appetit photo shoot that featured their winning dishes. Meanwhile the losers, Dave, Tennile and Suzanne got bused off in orange jumpsuits for a day of community service picking up a street adopted by Hell's Kitchen.

Dave re-hurt his arm steam cleaning the red carpet at the Hell's Kitchen entry. But he recovered sufficiently to have appetizers flying out of the kitchen at the start of dinner service. Tennile and Suzanne quickly became problems. With Tennile's problem being bad risotto, which ended up being Kevin's problem, when it was discovered it was he who overcooked the rice.

As the 5 chefs move on to entrees Ariel sends out raw chicken while Suzanne sends out raw fish. Ramsay has a major fit, things seem to be going better. And then Ariel sends out some badly mangled lamb.

Ramsay does the usual rant about being disappointed, then sends the chefs to their dorm to pick 2 for elimination. The obvious picks being Ariel and Suzanne, with Suzanne finally going home after being up for elimination 4 times.

Tennile continues to be funny in her confessionals. I have gotten used to her yelling. Dave talks like he is stoned. It was pretty funny when he got as tongue tied as goofy Van, when Dave tried to describe his dish to the Bon Appetit people.

Too many regular season shows have started up, so Hell's Kitchen is not in the Top 20 of the Nielson Ratings this week.

Nielsen Rating's Top 20 TV Shows for September 21 - 27

The Nielsen Rating's Top 20 TV Shows for September 21 - 27. The first number is the ranking, the second number is the season average, then the show name and network. The last number represents the number of viewers in millions. An asterisk * indicates a tie.

Rank	Season average	Show name	Network	Viewers in millions
1.	2	NCIS	CBS	20.6
2.	3	NCIS: Los Angeles	CBS	18.7
3.	4	Dancing with the Stars (Monday)	ABC	17.8
4.	1	Colts/Cardinals	NBC	17.5
5.	5	House	Fox	17.2
6.	6	Grey's Anatomy	ABC	17.0
7.	8	CSI	CBS	16.0
8.	9	Criminal Minds	CBS	15.8
9.	X	Dancing with the Stars (Tuesday)	ABC	15.4
*	X	Dancing with the Stars Results (Wednesday)	ABC	15.4
11.	11	CSI: NY	CBS	15.1
*	11	The Mentalist	CBS	15.1
13.	13	60 Minutes	CBS	14.9
14.	14	CSI: Miami	CBS	14.2
15.	15	The Good Wife	CBS	13.7
16.	15	Desperate Housewives	ABC	13.6
*	15	Two and a Half Men	CBS	13.6
18.	19	Big Bang Theory	CBS	13.0
19.	20	Modern Family	ABC	12.6
20.	X	FlashForward	ABC	12.5

Top Chef Las Vegas: Ron Duprat Packs His Knives

Lovable former Haitian boat person, Ron Duprat, was told to pack his knives and go, on this week's Top Chef Las Vegas.

Prior to the Quickfire Challenge we heard a lot of the chefs complaining about Robin not deserving to be there. That and her non-stop talking drove them nuts. So, of course, Robin won the Quickfire and Immunity from elimination.

For the Quickfire they had to cook something that represented the devil side and the angel side of their personality. The older brother's dessert was one of the least favorites. That was amusing. Earlier we'd heard him bragging about winning Elimination Challenges, but no Quickfire wins. Of course, Bryan's brother, Michael, was one of the favorites. Robin won with something sweet and something healthy and something to do with her being a cancer survivor.

Then Penn & Teller showed up, did a magic act, then deconstructed the magic act. I could not follow either the initial act or its deconstruction.

For the Elimination Challenge the chefs drew knives that had well known dishes written on them, like Meat Lasagna, Fish & Chips, Reuben Sandwich, Roast beef, that type stuff. They were told they had to deconstruct the dish and present the flavor profile in a new way.

Ron drew Paella. I think that's how it's spelled. It is some sort of Latin fish dish. I think. Ron did not understand the deconstruction concept.

In the end the judges did not like Ron's, Laurine's or Ash's deconstructions.

They liked Ashley's. That is 2 weeks in a row Ashley has been on top. They also like Michael Voltaggio's, Kevin's and Jennifer's lasagna reconstruction. It was amusing that they liked Jennifer's because she seemed to have a lot of trouble with this one and seemed to have no confidence in what she had deconstructed.

In the end, guest judge, a really likable one named Michelle Bernstein, picked Kevin as the winner. Kevin got a lot of cool cookware, in addition to winning.

Ron was very charming in the end, thanking everyone profusely and saying how much he enjoyed the experience and that he was living the American dream.

Survivor Samoa: Betsy Kicked Out Of Her Tribe

48 year old Campton, New Hampshire Police Office, Betsy Bolan, was kicked out of her tribe tonight on Survivor Samoa.

This was a strange episode of Survivor. There was only one challenge, a combo reward/immunity challenge. The winner got immunity and some fishing gear.

The challenge was a bizarrely rough game of fighting to get balls, then throw the balls to other tribe members, who tried to throw the balls through a hoop. First team to make 3 hoops wins.

There was tackling, head butting, all sorts of rough stuff, so much so that Jeff issued a warning that anyone getting too rough would get booted. Soon, bad boy wannabe, Ben, tripped an opponent. Jeff stopped the game and kicked Ben out. A Survivor first.

Ben's tribe was then outnumbered and quickly lost. The winning tribe got to pick someone to go with the losing tribe, to observe. Why, I don't know. I guess for drama potential, which it did provide, quite amply. Yasmin was picked to go. Jeff gave her a rolled up piece of paper with instructions to read it in private later.

Of course it was directions to a hidden immunity idol, which we earlier saw my new favorite Survivor, Russell, find, without a clue and in full view of his tribemates. Found it after bragging that this was what he was going to do. Even approaching Jaison and telling him of his plan to find the hidden immunity idol, which Jaison commented that we did not even know if one existed. Short time later Russell has it in hand, showing it to Jaison.

Back at the winning tribe, Shambo took off fishing, caught none and lost some of their newly won fishing gear. Thus painting a huge target on her back, should her tribe ever lose a challenge.

Meanwhile, back at the losing camp, Yasmin was raising all sorts of aggravation, offering to coach the tribe out of their losing ways, offering to help them with strategy. Then she pulled Ben aside and proceeded to berate him for being a sissy boy in the challenge, being a dude, knocking down a little girl like her. To which Ben called her ignorant ghetto trash, among other things.

The entire Ben/Yasmin exchange made for good TV, but it was not pleasant.

I must back up. After the ridiculously brutal challenge, Old Man Mike, on the losing team, was in bad shape, bad color, woozy. The Survivor medical team was called in, conveniently arriving via a SUV. Sort of tampers with the illusion that they are roughing it in the wild. Mike's blood pressure was way too low. The medical team took Mike out of the game.

Since Mike was on the losing tribe, I figured there would be no tribal council. I was wrong. There was some discussion of getting rid of Ben, due to his contribution to them losing, due to him making noise all night long hacking on wood and due to his overall unpleasant personality. But, they all deemed Betsy the weaker link and voted her out of the tribe.

Really made no sense to me. I would have wanted to get rid of Ben.

Hell's Kitchen: Sweaty Tattooed Mad Van Leaves

I really should have my permit to operate a TV remote revoked. A couple days ago I blogged about what I thought was the latest episode of Hell's Kitchen.

When I went to the FOX Hell's Kitchen website, to check on a name, I saw that the re-cap, for what I thought was next week's Hell's Kitchen, was up and ready to be read.

I thought I had myself a real scoop, that this was a mistake, that the erroneous re-cap would soon be taken down.

What I did not know was that on Tuesday FOX ran back to back episodes of Hell's Kitchen, to make up for it being pre-empted the week before.

I learned of my error when I read a viewer express joy at getting both Sabrina and Van off her TV screen in one week.

It is nice to be rid of Van. In the episode that killed him, Van once again had trouble cooking seafood, despite hearing him brag over and over again that cooking seafood is his specialty.

In his final episode part of Van's expertise with seafood included dripping a lot of sweat on to the fish while it cooked. Van's head looked like it was going to explode when Ramsay told him to come to him so Ramsay could yell at Van's sweaty face.

What caused that boy to sweat so much this episode? None of the others seemed to suffer that problem. I thought there was something way off about Van from the day we met him. His odd haircut, the tattoos, the Boomhauer garbled way of talking, the temper, the stammering when trying to describe what he'd cooked. And then in his last episode the innocent viewers were subjected to the sight of Van shirtless. I had to hit the pause button and try and figure out what the big tattoo across his chest spelled. I gave up.

Van cooks in a restaurant in Dallas. I need to find out which one and make sure I don't accidentally go there.

Tennile was the star, along with one-armed Dave, this episode. Tennile's shouted confessionals are both amusing and annoying. Suzanne needs to go next. She seems way in over her head.

Dancing With The Stars: Macy Gray & Ashley Hamilton Booted

Ashley Hamilton and Macy Gray were Wednesday night's double elimination from Dancing with the Stars. I really did not care who got sent home, so I didn't watch.

5 hours of Dancing with the Stars in one week is way too much.

Macy Gray seemed to be the only "Star" with good humor potential, as in she is really a goofy girl. If I remember right, I pretty much bailed on the last season of DWTS due to the low entertainment factor.

As in no Cloris Leachman, no Marie Osmond, no one funny.

I did find Kelly Osborne to be a big surprise. So articulate, so polite, so nice and so darn cute. Kelly seems to have a sense of humor. Kelly's dancing turned her mom, Sharon, into a sobbing mess. That was amusing.

There are those who say the Osbornes are a dysfunctional family. I'm not one of them. I think Sharon and Ozzie are a real good mom and dad. Very supportive of their kids. I was shocked a few months ago to see Sharon and Ozzie watching their son, Jack, scale Yosemite's El Capitan. It takes several days to accomplish that climb. I've seen the climbers at various heights going up that monolith. Somehow chunky Jack Osborne got himself in incredible shape and mastered the skill of extreme rock climbing.

This is something I could never do, the rock climbing I mean, I have mastered the being in incredible shape part. I also know I could never learn to do the dancing I see on Dancing with the Stars. So, I'm impressed with both of the Osborne kids.

As for DWTS, one thing really bugs me. These are not professional dancers. They are singers, actors, models. Those 3 judges get so critical. No one watching cares about that technical stuff. It's not a professional ballroom competition. It's a TV show. Then again, I guess the harsh carping, particularly from the elderly geezer, Len Goodman, is a bit amusing, at times. Carrie Ann Boat in the Harbor is the judge who grates on me the most. Why? I'm not sure.

Survivor Samoa: Russell Is A Real Bad Boy

Last Thursday came and went without me realizing the season premiere of Survivor had aired. I did not know I'd missed something til the next day when I saw a lot of buzz on the Internet about a guy on Survivor named Russell.

So, I went to the CBS Survivor website and confirmed that I had missed the first episode. Two days later I watched it via my computer. I really don't like watching TV shows on my computer, but it's better than nothing.

Russell is Russell Hantz. He owns Hantz Oil down in the Houston area. Apparently Russell is a multi-millionaire. Russell is only 5 and a half feet tall, thus he suffers from classic little man syndrome. He is quite the little macho man act.

Survivor has had many a deluded fool over the years, thinking they have the game all figured out, thinking they are smarter than everyone else. Russell immediately set out to make alliances with most of the women, whom he referred to as "Dumb Ass Girls."

It did not seem to occur to Russell that all it would take is one dumb ass girl to mention to another dumb ass girl that she had an alliance with Russell for his dumb ass game to come crashing down around him.

Another piece of Russell's brilliant strategy is to foment unrest and upset among his tribe. To that end Russell got up in the middle of the night and emptied everyone's water canteens. And he burned one of Jaison's socks, to Jaison's sore foot chagrin in the morning.

Over on Survivor Sucks there is some idiot with an online petition to CBS, insisting that Russell be punished for violating the rule about damaging other people's property. Apparently the petitioning viewer thinks Survivor is a live production, with the ability to ban someone on the fly, like Big Brother can do. This viewer must not remember Rupert stealing the other tribes shoes at the start of Survivor Pearl Islands.

One of Russell's other ploys was to get his tribe feeling sympathy for him via an elaborate story he told about losing his dog in New Orleans during Katrina where Russell waited on his roof for 2 days to be rescued. Russell gleefully tells the viewers, via many confessionals, his personal pleasure at duping all these dopes.

Marisa got a bit wary of Russell and had the nerve to question him. This made Marissa Russell's choice to be kicked out of the tribe. Russell got his way, so for now he is a successful puppetmaster. We'll see how long that lasts.

Other than Russell, the rest of the people did not stick in my mind, too much. It appears that Samoa will be providing some nice tropical South Seas scenery to this season of Survivor.

I need to remember to set my DVR to start recording Survivor. I don't want to watch it on my computer again.

Hell's Kitchen: Sabrina Takes Her Jacket Off & Leaves

Sabrina, was this week's Hell's Kitchen bootee. To my eyes it should have been either Van or Ariel who got the boot, due to both sending out cold food, with 3 instances of cold ravioli from Ariel and raw halibut from Van.

In a very strange mistake on the Hell's Kitchen website, they already have the re-cap from next week's Hell's Kitchen episode, up and readable. So, I know who gets sent home next week.

I'll copy the re-cap of next week's Hell's Kitchen below.

This week's episode started off with the Ramsay up at Whistler in British Columbia, telling the 2 teams, via video, to make 3 entrees from local farm produce, using each of 15 ingredients, once. Both teams are confident they have cooked some good stuff. However, the red girl's team thought they'd cooked up a real good lamb dish. However, the meat they'd cooked was lamb.

Olympic veterans Sasha Cohen and Jonny Moseley helped Chef Ramsay do the judging. Tennile was a bit tongue-tied when told that her lamb was deer meat. In the end, the boy's and Suzanne's blue team won the challenge. They got to go to Mark Peel's Campanile Restaurant while the girl's team were taken to a farm to clean pigpens.

For dinner service the teams were told they got to create their own menus from scratch. The diners got to choose from which menu to order. At the start the blue team was getting a lot of orders, with none for the red team.

Van had trouble on his fish station, miscounting scallops, undercooking halibut. Dave had trouble with his broken arm. Tennile weirdly began a sweeping frenzy in the middle of the cooking frenzy. Ariel sent out the aforementioned cold ravioli. Sabrina had trouble with her fish station.

After Ramsay smashed Van's raw halibut, sending fish bits flying, he shut down the kitchen and told both teams to decide who was the worst on their team. Van lobbied for Suzanne to get the ax, but the blue team put up Van. With the red team putting up Sabrina, who then got sent home.

Read no further if you don't want to know what happens next week on Hell's Kitchen....

Season 6, Episode 11: 6 Chefs Compete

We start with Chef Ramsay dismissing the contesting Chefs back to their dorms, including Van, who's disastrous display on the fish station put him in the hot seat of elimination, barely dodging the bullet of Ramsay's dismissal. As the Chefs all walk out through the kitchen and out onto the patio, Van vocalizes his frustration. "I hate that sh*t, man," he says.It means everything in the world for Van to be in Hell's Kitchen and he knows he can cook, but he also knows one more slip-up will put him right back into the spotlight of elimination.

The next morning, the Chefs wake up to six individually wrapped gifts; one for each contestant. Inside, is the black chef's coat. This means that all six will become one team. As everyone wakes up and opens their package, each contestant reflects on what having a black jacket means to them personally and within this competition.

The new team makes their way downstairs into the kitchen where Chef Ramsay is already cooking. He puts together one of his signature dishes and after commending them on earning a black jacket, he encourages everyone to have a taste of the dish.As each takes a bite, Chef Ramsay tells them they will be having the "Taste it, Now Make It" challenge. They will have to re-create a dish using only their senses as reference. Before beginning the challenge, Chef Ramsay pairs them in teams; Van/Ariel, Kevin/Tennille, and Dave/Suzanne.Chef Scott brings out a new signature dish from Ramsay's restaurant in London and the challenge begins. After an intense guessing game and very close judgment, Dave and Suzanne win by using the correct citrus juice in the original dish's sauce. Dave and Suzanne are told they will be going on a reward with Chef Ramsay to his restaurant, The London West Hollywood, where they will be having lunch with Christina, the Season 4 winner of Hell's Kitchen. The rest of the team is punished by having to stay back in Hell's Kitchen and set up the dining room for the night's dinner theme; "couple's night".

Dinner service for the new Black Team starts off rocky. Kevin, who is preparing tableside appetizers, has to rely on Suzanne at the appetizer station to be prompt with her orders, which she is not.Van, on the fish station, begins to have difficulty first, firing orders prematurely, then sweating in the food, and finally, continuing in a downward spiral by sending up uncooked fish.Chef Ramsay becomes furious. When Ariel burns lettuce, Chef Ramsay walks out of Hell's Kitchen, forcing the Chefs to fend for themselves. Tennille gets the kitchen back on track with her communication and Kevin does the same with his leadership at the pass. But when Kevin tells Suzanne to continue plating while he heads out to the dining room, Suzanne refuses to plate and makes Van do it on his own.When Chef Ramsay returns to the kitchen, he immediately kicks Van, Ariel and Suzanne out of the kitchen. The remainder of dinner service is completed by Dave, Kevin and Tennille.

The chefs who completed dinner service (Tennille/Dave/Kevin) are all deemed "Best-of-the-Worst" and are to decide who will be nominated for elimination.They collectively agree that Suzanne and Ariel should face dismissal, being the worst chefs that evening.But once in elimination, Tennille changes her mind and tells Chef Ramsay she believed Van actually had the worst performance. Chef Ramsay calls all of the three chefs down and after weighing everyone's argument, Chef Ramsay ultimately denies Van any more chances to win Hell's Kitchen, taking his chefs coat and ending Van's dream of ever becoming the Head Chef at Araxi Restaurant and Bar in Whistler, British Columbia.

Nielsen Rating's Top 20 for September 14 - 20

The Nielsen Rating's Top 20 TV Shows for September 14 - 20. The first number is the ranking, the second number is the season average, then the show name and network. The last number represents the number of viewers in millions. An asterisk * indicates a tie.

Rank	Season average	Show name	Network	Viewers in millions
1.	4	NFL: Giants/Cowboys	NBC	24.8
2.	x	Jay Leno Show (Monday)	NBC	18.4
3.	15	America's Got Talent (Wednesday)	NBC	15.8
4.	x	America's Got Talent (Monday)	NBC	13.9
5.	x	Emmy Awards	CBS	13.5
6.	50	Football Night in America Pt 3	NBC	13.4
*	x	Jay Leno Show (Wednesday)	NBC	13.4
8.	15	60 Minutes	CBS	13.1
9.	6	NCIS	CBS	12.4
10.	x	Survivor	CBS	11.7
11.	x	Jay Leno Show (Tuesday)	NBC	11.1
12.	46	Bones	Fox	10.4
13.	x	Biggest Loser	NBC	9.9
14.	8	The Mentalist	CBS	9.1
15.	7	CSI	CBS	8.8
*	x	Jay Leno Show (Thursday)	NBC	8.8
17.	65	The Office	NBC	8.2
18.	x	Community	NBC	7.9
19.		Big Brother	CBS	7.8
*		CSI: NY	CBS	7.8
*		Fringe	Fox	7.8