Posts from — February 2012

The fabulous Gabby Millgate has agreed to blog on Excess Baggage for Reality Ravings, so we get a unique perspective of the show, plus a witty recap. You can follow her on Twitter @gabbymillgate or check out her website or her YouTube Channel for a laugh.

Over to you Gabby Millgate:

Hello you!

I’ve been asked by Reality Ravings to write a guest blog about last night on excess baggage WED 29 Feb on Go!

As I am a contestant on Excess Baggage my perspective is going to colour this whole blog (…as being informative & self indulgent is  such a rare opportunity).
My perspective is this :I watch the show & tweet after a day of workouts & challenges.

LOCATION: GOLD COAST
ENDURANC: CHALLENGE
IN A NUTSHELL:High rise stairs from hell with aspects of Gold Coast Meter-maid
BEST TWEET: @MrsMRecommends ”might have guessed Ajay wouldn’ do it #shirker I feel for the camera and sound crew having to do it! #excessbaggage”

RECAP

Firstly the most important info:
WHO VOMITED? Nathan…its his usual reaction to anything extreme.

WHO NEARLY DIES? Kate DeRugio AND Nathan

Lets start with Darryn and Lisa (RED TEAM).
They come last again but not before @MarniKelly tweeted ”@lusheslamour call @DarrynLyonsMrP geriatric & a cockatoo in 1 show,brilliant”.

The Orange team with Dippa and Lana continue to delight me. Lana unique turn of phrase describing Dippa’s frustration made judge @joannanutrition  tweet this “Thank goodness Dipper is a gent I kept my teeth ”.

The Blue team K-Fed /Renea showed us love and exhaustion. It’s amazing how K-fed pulls all the chicks…right up 78 floor of stairs. and Renae seemed to do it effortlessly…Is she a robot from the future sent back in time to loose weight?
He said I love you and she heaved onto his chest…..which is understandable  78 floors with Matt Purple team behind her…somewhere down a few flights a giant man
on a mission to win.

It was like watching something from a horror movie.

Then Nathan vomited (in his team colour-yellow), and then Kate nearly died.
Ben (my teammate) came to the rescue and got her to safety, but to do that they had to keep climbing.

Watching this made me ask some important questions.

What is the purpose of the competition element?
Is it survival of the fittest?
If it was for Ben he would have kept walking and left Kate to be taken care of by someone else.
Helping your mate no matter what team you’re on, seems to be at Ben’s core.
How do you score that in a competition?
Are we on a battlefield or a playground?
I’m glad this show is about choice.

Me…I was very brave and waited really hard at the top having taken the elevator.
I closed my eyes and imagined sending Ben energy…dunno if it worked
That can’t be measure either.

Next show:
Thursday Night March 1 is the first Elimination. Who will be in the bottom two?
Who do you think will be standing in front of the judges explaining and justifying why they deserve to escape ELIMINATION?!!
Everybody’s worried. Everybody should be. Understandable

Tonight they were cooking for Bed and Breakfast owners and their families. The team that receives the most votes wins and is safe from elimination. Manu and Pete gets to pick the worst two dishes and those teams will be in a cook off.

They have to cook for fifty people. I love the way they rock up to the B&B’s with two half full shopping bags each. Coles shopping bags must use the same technology as Dr Who’s tardis.

However I don’t think the fifty people actually taste all the dishes so the B&B people were voting on the best dish of the ones they tasted.

Helen and Steve made Mediteranean Pancakes. I know I am meant to like this pair, and Steve is allegedly funny but they just seem like they force themselves to be jovial. Hopefully viewers will get to know them better to be able to form an opinion as they have not had much screen time.

Manu liked the flavour of the buckwheat as he thought it was different and I thought they were unlucky to not win.

Megan and Andy made a Bacon and Leek with Gruyere Tart with Roasted Tomatoes. Megan forgot to prick the pastry, her poor attention to detail is quite funny. However the judges liked it, but they said the pastry was not cooked properly.

Carla and Thomas made Honey Chicken and Roasted Almond Filo with Blueberry Maramalade and goats cheese. When will this pair learn not to put so many ingredients in their dish, it sounded foul. Pete could not keep a neutral face when judging it he looked like he was about to heave. Manu said he liked the jam! Pete said the presentation was good, however said it was not enjoyable to eat.

Jennifer and Leigh were smart and going for few ingredients but high technical skill with Slow Cooked Eggs with green sauce. Unfortunately for them their thermometer broke so this was an issue as they had to keep the water temperature at 62 degrees. However they found another thermometer.

The judges loved the dish and the egg was cooked perfectly. The presentation was also appealing.

Carly and Emily went with a Blueberry Brioche Cup with Labne Yoghurt, the judges thought it was a great dish.

Peter and Gary are making crepes with veloute, it was interesting to see if they would actually get it done in time considering the time it takes them to chop ingredients. However they did. Manu gave them a tickle up about the constant cooking of french classics from the 70′s and told them to be a bit more modern if they wanted to stay in the competition for any length of time.

Peter also wanted Sam and Jillian to be at the bottom as he felt they were the ones that stabbed them in the back when they did their first instant restaurant. Peter clearly was repressing the memory of his moaning about the time it took for Sam and Jillian to put out their main.

The judges thought it was very old school but thought the flavour was not too bad.

Scott and David made Field Mushrooms with asparagus, poached eggs, and roasted tomatoes with David’s home made chutney. The judges thought there was a lot going on  but it worked.

The WA girls, Angela and Justine, cooked Baked Pancetta Eggs with Italian Baked Beans and Corn Muffins. Pete thought the muffin let the dish down as it was doughy. However they thought the rest of the plate was beautiful.

Nic and Rocco cooked Bacon, Egg and Spinach parcels. Pete thought it was not the standard they delivered in the restaurant. Pete said there was no wow in the dish.

Jillian and Sam were cooking French Toast with Banana Cream. The judges thought the bread had not been soaked enough as it was dry, and they did not like the flavour of the banana cream. Manu thought it tasted like unripe bananas and far too gelatinous.

Carly and Emily won the peoples choice award and were safe from elimination.

Peter was not happy about it as he thought it was wrong that they won with a dessert. Long time viewers of these shows like this and Masterchef Australia know the majority of time the sweet dish wins, particularly if kids are allowed to vote.

It was no surprise that Carla and Thomas would be in the elimination cook off as the dish was inedible. However the look on Thomas’s face was priceless he looked so angry, however I could not work out whether he was cranky with Carla whose dish it was or the judges for not being able to taste their brilliance.

On Monday February 27, as reported by the Sydney Morning Herald, Australian Survivor contestant Joel Betts pleaded guilty to the attempted murder of his ex-girlfriend Samantha Holland. The incident occurred in April 2010 when he stabbed her twelve times in the back after the couple broke up in heated arguments.

Ms. Holland was taken to hospital and survived the ordeal.

Betts, who finished in 3rd place on the first and only season of Australian Survivor, is on trial for detaining and wounding his former girlfriend with the intent of murder. Details of the attack was brought forth last year during the committal hearing, where the court was told about how Betts stabbed Ms. Holland before throwing her on a couch and trying to kiss her.

The incident took place in a unit that they shared in Chippendale, Sydney.

Betts remains in custody and will return to court for sentencing on April 27.

It would be interesting to know if his anger issues were picked up in the psychological testing contestants are given before they are cast on a reality TV show.

I knew I was in for disappointment with this episode. The website promised that a team would be banished to a “baron campsite” and, whilst I hoped that this meant a costume drama crossover (or, at the very least, an appearance by The Dictator), something in the back of my mind warned that the homophone bug had struck.

My recording missed the first part of the ep so I just had to rely on my powers of observation to figure out the result of the eviction. Bye, Bek. Fortunately I tuned in just in time for the middle of the night wake-up as the trainers “shake things up a bit”. Tiffiny hasn’t seen “the hunger” in this year’s contestants, so maybe they’ve snuck in more than some illicit booze. I love that Margie thought that she might have been dreaming about Michelle, given that she’s a “pretty lady”. Shannan reveals his literal side – the competition needs a “wake-up call”.

There is a lot of screaming as Shannan decides the contestants should have mastered push-ups from their toes by now. He then picks on Kasey as the group practices their planking technique. This part really annoys me – Kasey is one of the few who is actually trying to do this properly and a couple of times he calls her out for dropping the pose before she actually does. Meanwhile, the others are all over the shop with their form, unless they were supposed to be attempting downward facing dog.

Commando does some screaming at Graham, which motivates him to do some push-ups but not to open his eyes. Lydia receives acclaim for her power and they all seem to think they’ve done a good night’s work. The appearance of Hayley on the beach raises some eyebrows and they are told they need to race back to the camp. By the time they are running, it’s light, so this has been an epic.

Margie does a pretty amazing job at motivating her team in the race. Hamish shuffles along consistently in true Cliffy Young style but is not able to defeat the Reds. The Black team have Selina in their sights but it’s a bit tough on Alex with his leg in a brace. Still, he digs deep and gets past Selina who fails to respond to Tiffiny’s encouragement.

So, now I guess the Reds get to meet the Baron! Um, no… they are to choose a team to leave Camp Biggest Loser “immediately”. “For… good?” asks Lydia, in a mix of shock and hope. Nah. Just until the next weigh-in. “They won’t be training, eating or sleeping (at all? Seriously?) here,” continues Hayley, confirming that their new environment will be the bush! The Reds decide the White team won’t cope without showers, and banishing them has the added bonus of splitting up Hamish and Michelle (so they are adhering to the relationship script here).

Whites head off to play with leeches and pitch shelters. They sleep on eskys and tarps, wrapped in mosquito nets.

Contest: Reds, Blacks and Blues play Last Man Standing. This is so Survivor. Teams choose a pole-stander and the last one standing will “take the walk to power”. Hamish looks around, then nominates himself. Margie takes it for the Reds and Simon for the Blacks. Rivetting television, this. Margie starts chatting to Hamish about Michelle and we get a montage of Hamish/Michelle clips as filler. Well, it has been an hour and a half. The left side of the platform is removed at this point, and at two hours the right side goes. Hamish’s feet hurt and the only thing that stops him from calling it quits right there is an ad break.

Margie trots out the “world of pain” cliche about Hamish a number of times, going on to describe all the body parts she thinks he’s feeling it in. After three and a half hours and some deal-making between Margie and Simon, Hayley decides that the two out there could stay all day. It’s on to one foot and… out of time for the episode. Tune in next time to find out who won the gripping standing-still contest!

It is about time So You Think You Can Dance Australia returned to our screens so hopefully the rumours in the Daily Telegraph about Sarah Murdoch hosting a new series on TEN this year are true.

At the moment there are no dance reality TV shows on our screens. Fox 8 have announced Got To Dance more times than Carl Scully announced the Parramatta to Chatswood rail link, and we know what happened to that!

Basically I will not believe Got To Dance has got the green light until it is on my screen.

So You Think You Can Dance Australia should be a ratings winner for TEN as it has been a few years since it was last seen on our screens and a new batch of talent will be ready to audition.

Sarah Murdoch who has a knowledge of dance will make a great host, and really she has the runs on the board to be able to easily handle the live shows.

Also I would only keep Matt Lee as judge from the first incarnation, he really hit his straps in the final series giving good critical advice that the viewers who are non-dancers could understand. Also he has the recent experience as a professional dance and performer in his recent role in Mary Poppins.

Also after Jason Coleman’s turn on Celebrity Apprentice Australia, he kind of damaged his brand and came across as a egomaniac. Also I found him to be saying the same thing series after series. And well I have nothing to say about Bonnie Lythgoe that was just wrong.

So fingers crossed we see So You Think You Can Dance Australia back on TEN in 2012.

Gabby Millgate continues to pump out funny clips in her character of Julia Spillard. Lucky for her Julia is still Prime Minister.

Here are her two latest:

 

“You say galantine, I say ballantine” says Manu well that is what he should have said. After hearing Gary and Peter be continually pretentious with their comments on how the guests around the table would not know what a galantine was, it appeared they did not either.

Manu put them straight and said that it was a ballantine. Gary blamed the thirty year old Woman’s Weekly Cookbook he had been using.

I still don’t get why this pair are so pretentious. Why bother saying the french for main course? Also they had a dig about the other teams serving sparkling wine but calling it champagne.

Entree was moreton bay bugs with garlic and lemon and fresh baguettes, main was Duck Galantine with Orange Sauce and dessert was Rhubarb Creme Brulee.

They were having a better prep time but not without some dramas Peter sounded like he was dreadfully sick.

Also there their electricity went so the prep clock was stopped while the electrician was called. Did the load from the filming overload the system, however normally the production crew take their own generator.

Peter was clearly not in a good mood, and this was not helped when Gary got water over some of the creme brulees.

With the entree Manu thought there was too much garlic, and Pete said the seafood was overcooked. Also Manu put the boot into the shop bought baguette said it was bad bread.

They still took a long time between entree and main course, but not as long as previously. They topped and tailed snow peas one by one, they had to make and reduce the orange sauce, and also take the string out of the chicken.

Pete liked the main but did not like the sauce. Also he would have liked some sexier ingredients in it like truffles or foie gras. Manu thought the sauce was too acidic.

Thomas said the sauce and snow peas were a write off, and Scott thought he was trying to influence people around the table. I do like it how Thomas is trying to manipulate the competition, which is not a bad idea for him, as we have not seen any sign of him being actually able to cook.

Pete loved the rhubarb in the creme brulee, and Manu thought it was a brulee how it should be.

Then it was back to the MKR kitchen, and the judges scored first.

Manu scored them a five for entree, a five for main, and a nine for dessert.

Pete scored them a three for entree, a six for main, and a nine for dessert.

The teams scored them 32 out of 50. Which gave then a grand total score of 69 which meant they were safe. This meant Emma and Andrew were eliminated from the competition. Also it was revealed that by Meg and Simon being on the top of the scoreboard they were safe from the next elimination.

Excess Baggage may have failed to capitalise on the relentless in-cricket promos, but it does seem to have taken one victory.  The Sydney Morning Herald reports that audiences are down for The Biggest Loser and places the blame on Nine’s (now Go’s) rival weight-loss show.

”Much of the damage on Ten was Nine’s failed program strike of Excess Baggage. But it completely derailed Biggest Loser, [thus] robbing Ten of a peak evening springboard,” Mr Allen said.

Excess Baggage was relegated to Nine’s digital channel Go! after just two weeks on air, but even after it had been shifted to a lesser channel the audiences failed to come back to the Biggest Loser. ”Viewers just didn’t come back [to Biggest Loser]. Perhaps it highlighted to viewers that it [the genre] is just not vital to their viewing,” he said.

Is this a likely explanation? Or is this “singles”/men vs women season just not engaging?  Ten must be looking forward to the launch of Masterchef to win back some eyes in the evening time-slot.

The Amazing Race has always provided amusement with the “slash” descriptions of participants – models-slash-dating is fairly routine – but the description for this week’s Wife Swap offers a “strict white witch”. I’m assuming Michelle is not a strict white witch in the manner of somebody being a strict Catholic, so I think I’ll offer white witch-slash-disciplinarian as my contribution to slash descriptors. Anyway, she will meet Cherie’s “no rules” family, where “clowning around is more important than routine”.

Cherie is a kid’s entertainer and her husband Brian is cruelly described in the narration as “house slave”, working 60 hours a week and doing all the work around the seven kids, too. Michelle punishes her three kids if they break her rules, whilst her husband “doesn’t have to lift a finger”. Hands up all of you who went straight from that description to a vision of Michelle punishing her kids like this:

We know that Wife Swap is nuanced enough to help us overcome those preconceptions about witches, right?

“Beware of the Feral Child” warns a sign in the Clark home. The sequence that follows – Cherie demanding a different breakfast to the one Brian has brought her (in bed), the kids refusing to get out of bed, kids wagging school – suggests that perhaps this is not a reality show after all and we are being pranked. It all feels so scripted.

The Harding home has rules lists, chores timetables and the kids get naughty time based on their ages for any breaches. Michelle cleans the toilet two to three times a day and she and John laugh about whether she is obsessive compulsive. At least, John laughs and Michelle seems uncomfortable discussing it.  They are “raising adults not children”.

Swap Time

Michelle loves the welcoming “feral child” sign and is taken by the little motorbike, however I think she believes it belongs to the kids. She notices the overall grottiness immediately. As she explores the house she begins to get disoriented by the number of bedrooms she keeps coming across. “I’m a little overwhelmed,” she (under)states.

Cherie identifies an emo teenager based on Brighton’s room. She notes Michelle’s tarot cards, books, Buddhas and incense and her spirit fingers match her “whooooo! Cool”. Oh, Cherie, don’t jump to conclusions! We can, though, since the camera lingers on the NO LYING rule for the second time. Foreshadowing, much?

Manuals

Cherie takes exception to Michelle’s description of being a white witch. “That’s not true, that’s just not true” is her response to the claim you don’t have to have special powers, you just have to believe. Does Cherie want Michelle to hold a diploma in witching? John’s 40 hour work week is not seen to be worthy of an exemption from housework, according to Cherie. Did she miss the part where Michelle is a stay-at-home-mum? Sheesh.

Michelle reveals that she has coulrophobia, which is going to make doing Cherie’s job difficult. She starts to look fearful when she gets to the part where the manual reveals how many kids the Clarks have. She’s horrified that the kids are allowed to miss school and that Brian has to clean up around them.

First Days

The families meet. I’m impressed by how readily the Clark girls clue into the fact that Michelle is strict, and at how one seems to identify that she’s a “palm-reader”. “She looks like a bitch” is one daughter’s assessment. I’m on board with the narrator, whose response to that is “charming!”. Brian reassures one of the girls that Michelle won’t clobber her, watering down that reassurance by adding “she might put a spell on you, though”.

Little Drew informs Cherie that Michelle is afraid of clowns, so Cherie immediately responds with “maybe that’s how I should go to the table meeting then. As a clown. With a toilet brush.” I hope they are not just setting me up for disappointment. I so want to see that.

On morning one, Courtney refuses to go to school in the Clark house, but over in the Harding house Brighton is thinking of taking the day off, too. Seriously. He can sense that Cherie might be a soft touch on school attendance? More like a set-up. I wonder what the school will have to say about Courtney’s revelations that she attended 50% of school days last year?

Poor Michelle has to face her phobia with Yoyo, but she’s unable to overcome her childhood fears. Cherie thinks there are better things to do with her time than cleaning, but doesn’t seem to realise that she can actually “think about having sex with her husband” while she does something else. She quits on the meditating. Michelle is able to suck it up and go back to make balloon animals with a clown and she can’t even sit quietly for a short time? Hmmm. Michelle freaks out when Sally goes missing at a neighbour’s place and the rule change can’t come quickly enough.

Rule Change

The Harding house – fewer rules; the Clark house – order and discipline.

Michelle expects some rebellion but hopes the family will see the benefit in greater structure. Two of the girls don’t bother to pitch for the rules session. Amongst the new rules: a chores roster, a whiteboard for the kids to note where they are going and what time they’ll return, a tutor and some “cleansing”. Billy, who hasn’t been seen before now, takes offence at the rule change on the basis that he thinks they make the family look slacker than it really is. The girls get stuck into the first task – tidying away the clothes from the dining room – but seem to lose steam early on.

The younger girls take to the tutoring session as you’d expect – it wasn’t a great plan to have them all together – but Cassidy, who is tackling HSC, realises that she’s been given a real opportunity. Once Michelle takes to bed sick, the girls chuck the rules out. Courtney sticks to her dog poo-collecting task (is this a recurrent Wife Swap theme?), but she disposes of it in the pond. The “I need to know where you are” is just not taking hold at all as the girls all take off.

Cherie dresses as a clown for her rule change. No more chores. It’s seriously the land of Do-as-you-please from The Magic Faraway Tree and *anybody* who read Enid Blyton knows how that turned out. Because affection and attention is a zero-sum game in Cherie’s world, she is transferring that from Brighton to Drew and Phoebe for the rule change. Oh, and instead of the chore chart, there’s a joke chart. Everyone has to play pranks. It’s clear that John doesn’t see Cherie’s changes as sustainable, but he’s sensible enough to acknowledge that it’s only a couple of days so they might as well have fun with it. And then he serves Cherie a joke breakfast.

Cherie takes the girls bowling and then clowning. They seem pretty excited about being able to stay up as late as they want. John predicts they will crash and burn. True to the overall lack of energy in this episode so far, we don’t even see this. Cherie hopes that at the table meeting she’ll be able to pass on to Michelle that the kids should “have fun” and “not walk on eggshells the whole time” which really doesn’t seem to be how the Harding household was pre-swap. We all know the rule: show, don’t tell. If you can’t show, the audience is going to assume that it’s because it doesn’t exist and the set-up is meaningless.

Table Meeting

Brian acknowledges that Michelle turned the girls around, which Cherie says “is what she wanted”. He also agrees that the tutor was one of the highlights. Cherie reveals that Brian is the one who undermines the discipline, which was something that might have been interesting had it been revealed earlier.

It’s clear that the dialogue around OCD is not something that Michelle seems comfortable with, and there is tension when that is raised at the meeting. Cherie’s accusation that John is under the thumb also reveals some terseness, but it’s certainly not high drama at the table by any means. In fact, they all seem to acknowledge their strengths and weaknesses as though it’s a group round for a job interview.

Homecoming

Michelle’s return home is really awkward. Drew is all “ummmmmm, sort of?” when asked if she’s glad her mum is home. Michelle is very dismissive of the rule changes and throws out Cherie’s rules angrily. Cherie, on the other hand, returns home and immediately ups the “oh, MUM, ick!” factor by saying that she doesn’t want to be cleaning the toilet when she’d rather be thinking about sex.

Revisit

The Hardings are apparently more relaxed, although no rule changes have been taken up. For Michelle, Wife Swap has made her appreciate her family.

Over at the Clarks, Courtney has stopped taking time out of school and Kirsty is taking her study more seriously. It’s not mentioned, but they are eating at the dining table, too.

Oh, and the foreshadowing with “no lying” at the Hardings? Never amounted to anything. Fitting, really.

Quote of the Episode

“I never expected a witch to come to my house.” Yeah, it’s not a great line, but it wasn’t a great episode.

After the teaser in the papers at the beginning of The Biggest Loser series viewers finally got to see who was expelled from the house for drinking alcohol.

Luke was told he had to leave has he got drunk in the house, something that is not allowed, but also more disturbingly it was his behaviour change that may have been the thing that got him punted.

He became aggressive, swearing and arguing and did he also slap someone on the butt?

He was put into lockdown and when Shannan came and talked to him he offered to leave the house. Did the producers let him go with some dignity by making it seem he offered to go?

Luke admitted he had alcohol issues and it was something he had to deal with this outside the house. However all of these contestants would have some kind of addiction or mental health issues due to food being their “drug”.

Obviously not condoning his aggressive behaviour but shouldn’t they try and address this inside the house?

It was weigh in time as well and everyone lost big numbers, even Hamish who had been eating himself to immunity. Now he has lost his last team mate he will struggle.

The red girls continued to kick butt, and were safe from immunity. And it was the white  team and black team who had to face elimination.

Bek was the surprise nomination from the white team as she thought it was agreed that Selena was the one all her team mates were voting for, and Graham was up for the black team as he had the lowest weight loss percentage.

However viewers will have to wait until tomorrow night to see who goes or in fact if anyone goes.

For the full recap and fabulous analysis of the episode see Injera’s Blog Post on it.