Checking in, checking on

Hey Watch Party followers! Now before you start throwing your TV remotes at me, let me explain my absence. See, what had happened was I took a trip home to Arkansas to see my nieces graduate from high school. The two weeks I was away just happened to be the end of the Spring TV season. I watched every finale: "Glee", "Survivor" (Yay, Sandra!), "Grey's Anatomy" (Whoa, crazy Columbine shooter guy!) ... I saw them all. But there wasn't a long enough break in the action for me to write about anything I was watching.

That was May. Fast forward to the summer months when TV is nothing but reality, and my reality is nothing but fantasy. I usually use the summer to catch up on my reading ("Game Change," anyone?), but this summer I thought I'd give dating a whirl. And you know what I've discovered? It eats up a lot of my TV-watching time. It also takes a lot of patience to date a guy who doesn't have cable and his 152,000-inch TV comes with only 10 channels. *Placing remote to temple, pulling trigger* So what does a person with no cable do when they visit a person who has over 200 channels? They surf, of course. We barely get through 5 minutes of one show before he's moved on to the next. And who watches those video channels, anyway? My remote never goes higher than the Encore movie channel!

In any case, he'll be around for awhile which means I have to find a way to balance having a social life with continuing the Watch Party. Oh, no ... no. I don't have a solution right now! I'm working on it. But here are some thoughts on what I have been watching this summer:

"Big Brother" (CBS): The show comes on multiple times a week which means multiple times for ramped up drama. Aside from the lame "saboteur" twist, the show has produced plenty of humor and drama. Who knew the "Kosher King," meek little Andrew, would leave a wake of victims with his vengeful exit speech? Seeing Kristen and Hayden squirm over their reveal showmance was priceless. And producers, can you please tell Rachel to tone it down in the Diary Room? Her "excited voice" is as bad as that dye job. I'm rooting for Britney! The show airs on Sundays, Wednesdays and Thursdays.

"Top Chef: D.C." (Bravo, Wed., 9:00): Why do the judges keep rewarding Angelo for his Asian dishes? To me it shows that that's the only thing he knows how to cook. And shouldn't a top chef have more than soy sauce and sushi under his apron? I'm just sayin'!

"Project Runway" (Lifetime, Thurs., 9:00): Has anyone been paying attention to the commercials for this season? Let's just say they look more like advertisements for a Lifetime movie than a sewing show. The show promised a huge twist, but it failed to deliver. They made it seem as if multiple people would be cut in the first episode when all they did was dump the wrong person for a guy who basically made a Snuggie. The bigger twist is that the show is 90 minutes this season, meaning they won't be replaying it the same night like they usually do. Do us a favor, Lifetime! Save that extra 30 minutes and give us more shots of the actual garments. I don't care to see the designers' faces when their model takes the runway. Oh, and please loose the dark backdrop. You can barely see the clothes if the material is anything other than white. Or is it just me?

"So You Think You Can Dance" (FOX, Wed. & Thurs.): In an effort to revamp the show, the network has taken my favorite summer staple and made a mockery of it. When I first heard they were doing an all-star season, I was excited to see some of the best contestants compete again. But all they did was bring back 3 people I actually remember and a gang of dancers who were voted off their seasons early. I didn't watch the audition rounds so I have no attachment to any of the contestants. The one guy I was pulling for (ballet dancer Alex) was sidelined by an injury just one week after he performed a smokin' hot hip-hop number along side Season 4's tWitch Boss (yes, that's how he spells it). Watch the performance here.

I'll try to do a better job of checking in more often. But I'll leave you with this little nugget in the meantime. Be easy, TV Watch Party crew!