I don’t usually comment on the decisions of the game runners, but their choices turned the Women’s Championship into sort of a farce.
For those who didn’t watch, they had each woman run the first course individually, and then the four who did the best (went the furthest, fastest) would get to skip the next round, and the four with the worst times were eliminated. The middle eight contestants then went into head-to-head race offs, with the losers eliminated and the winners moving on to the third round – giving eight contestants, leading to a round of four, then two giving the final winner.
IOW, the third round ended up being races between four women who had only run a single course (and had had more time to rest since) and four women who had had to also run the second, longer course with a relatively shorter time to rest. Guess what happened? Every single contest ended with the women who had had to run the second round eliminated by the woman who had gotten the bye. What a surprise, eh?
Basically they might as well have declared that only the top four women from the first race would go on and the other 12 were eliminated.
So stupid.
(BTW, why are all the top women white? In the men’s contest, there are blacks, hispanics, asians …. There are plenty of minority women on the pro sports teams, the Olympic teams, etc. Why none in Ninja?)
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), Lunatic Ledges 35.10, 15th BHRL, nice knowin’ ya!
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Herman takes a bath on the second transition, Greene doesn’t, and this one’s over. It was over in 10 seconds, for crying out loud. On the plus side, we’ve now had 5 different winners in as many events, meaning that this will remain an unpredictable hard-fought event for years to come provided that Greene signs with the WNBA within the next 11 months.
) Fine overall but a little light on the filling.
Given their overall strong results and ability to handle any challenge fearlessly, this was no surprise. Look, Tina and Aivan were game, but they had a limited repertoire in a contest that demands versatility, and they never had the look of a champion. I’m totally convinced that they would’ve been done after the last team challenge if their side didn’t win immunity. For the entire homestretch it looked like they were in a constant battle for rock bottom plus one, and it just so happens that this is the worst place to be in the finale. I should also point out that Rachel and Julio survived at least one massive misstep not too long ago (undercooked scallops), so degree of difficulty certainly did matter.
In any reality show, teams are created for two purposes: 1. Competitive communism, i.e. propping up worthless no-hope bums by allowing them to piggyback actually useful contestants and chaining lead weights to strong contenders by forcing them to carry said bums on their backs, which in many cases knocks them out of the contest entirely 
, and 2. creating tons of bickering and drama and screamfests by shoving together people who have zero chemistry and massive personality clashes and can’t work together at all. In my experience, to use TEEEAAAMMMMSSSS in a reality show (unless they enter as one, like on Lego Masters) is to inject an aquarium-load of suck. It’s no secret that the worst parts of the last season of Masterchef where when these contestants were smashed into ridiculous motley amalgams who couldn’t communicate at all and constantly butted heads on everything from spoon technique to the color of the salt. I swear, this crap was nonstop this season. There were the recon teams, the loading teams, the swim teams, the rope teams, the ration teams, the jeep teams, the restroom teams, everywhere teams, teams, TEAMS!! And of course, one team member failing meant that the whole team failed, which I’m pretty sure didn’t happen once or twice. 
I mean, geez, rewarding the one celeb who showed restraint was the right thing, but you’ve done this collective punishment total bullcrap for 3.5 seasons, and now you discover enlightenment?? And on top of that, you allow three people to become scapegoats via vote? VOTE???
And the 5-letter challenge became a 5-digit challenge which both finallists, Rhoman and RJ, got. Somehow. So it came down to whether Rhoman or RJ would have to face literal death first, with the supreme loser being Rhoman after he was down to one match and couldn’t make clean drinking water anymore. Gadzooks, this is the closest thing to a literal enactment of Battle Royale I’ve seen on television. Of course finishing second is traumatizing enough, but when someone suffers the absolute most of everyone in the contest…real, honest-to-Marisa constant physical, mental, and emotional anguish…only to win [insert 50 terms for "nothing] NOTHING, NOTHING, [another 25 for good measure], I’m genuinely concerned if he’ll ever come back from this.
) And that’s it until next year. The switch to a wholesale youth moment not only has failed to reverse the slide, it hasn’t halted it at all. And again, something that pays this little is never going to get the top young athletes. Sheesh, where the heck has Vance Walker been lately? Seems to have completely vanished. I won’t celebrate when this gets cancelled with zero fanfare, but I won’t be surprised either.
Tiffany…uh oh, the rice needed 10 more minutes, it was very chewy. Joe, however, disagrees; he likes the rice and thinks the whole thing really works. Friendly reminder that art is subjective, tastes differ even among top-level experts, and one judge not liking one thing doesn’t have to be disastrous.
“It’s the best profiterole I’ve tasted in this competition. And never in my entire career would I ever think I’d say that chanterelle ice cream is [beep] delicious.” Tiffany really liked the texture and thought it was really Mexico, only super-tiny criticism is “a little bit of salt would have turned it up a bit”. Joe…oh my goodness. “The difference between a good chef and a great chef is a chef who has the ability to make people think. And when your technique and your idea causes me to ask questions about where these ideas come from and where then can go to, that’s an amazing talent.”
), but that’s exactly what happened to me with AGT. And this after my enthusiasm for this show went off a damn cliff years ago! (I still say axing Howard Stern was the first crack in the dam, BTW.) The big reason? No totally undeserving, repulsive, gross, pathetic, or embarrassing act made it to the final for the second year in a row. Rappers? Gone. Gross naked guy? Gone. Sad clown? Gone. Comedians (none of whom were any good)? Gone. Worthless hack who thinks Las Vegas vacationers will pay to watch goddam lecturing? Oh, you’d better believe the voters sent him back to the gray oblivion he came from. It’s far from perfect…they did make it past prelims, after all…but I really get the feeling that some sense has invaded this show and it’s not going away. If I zap past all the judges’ buffoonery and the asphyxiating drama around the Golden Buzzers, that leaves a concise, fast-paced show where it’s easy to remember who does what.
When do Cheerleading Championships begin again?
The act itself? Girls do a bunch of flips and splits, dogs run and jump over them, one of them stands on its hind legs and slowly rotates, and another sort of walks through someone’s legs. Wow, elementary-school level gymnastics and going for a run in the woods, that’s a million-dollar act for sure! 
You know, given what these furballs have shown themselves to be capable of, maybe it’d be a better idea to just keep them backstage and do a cornball skit. (“What was the overall quality of your performances this season?” “RUFF!”) Didn’t get who the guest star was…”A.A. Pearl” or something. Dunno what she did.
It’s Trisha Pace, who apparently believes that if you act like a completely incompetent boob, it’ll distract everyone from your paint-peeling voice, and vice versa, which makes her reason 
Day-um! Now I know this show has entered a new age. Not only has someone from a category whose chances used to be somewhere between “death warmed over” and “just death” taken the prize, she beat out a diva, a category that as late as last season was near-bulletproof. Did Simon Cowell take his curses with him or something?