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So, nothing is on next week. At least nothing we here at SDYW watch. Sadness. But the one shining light is the return of The Office, and hopefully it will be good. Other than that, I've been watching The Pretender on DVD and I'm enjoying it. Much like Lost, the show gives you just enough pieces of the puzzle to keep you interested, particularly in Miss Parker's case, but the storytelling formula in each episode is exactly the same. Jarod pretends to be [fill in the blank], Miss Parker and Sydney track him down, Jarod stymies the bad guy, Miss Parker and Sydney show up and chase him, he escapes. The end. Please, someone, tell me this doesn't continue for four entire seasons. I don't think I can take it.

ANTM Cycle 10: Drowning Edition

America’s Next Top Model – If You Can’t Make It Here, You Can’t Make It Anywhere
The ladies are divided into groups as they go on modeling auditions. Then, they visit Broadway for a photo shoot, where they are photographed through a plastic sheet while lying face down in water.

Only 8 girls left. At this point I’m pulling for Katarzyna.

Dominique is craaaazy! Like me, Lauren and some of the other girls think Claire was disrespectful to Aimee last week. Lauren maybe drinks Fatima’s coffee (it’s unclear), Fatima is annoyed about it, and Lauren starts cursing up a storm. Whatever.

The girls go on go-sees in groups of four. Wow, these girls get cell phones with navigational capabilities. And they don’t have to do this ep in a country where they don’t speak the language. However, they are not allowed to take taxis. They have to walk everywhere. B.F.D.

Whitney is perfectly aware that, as a plus-sized model, she would not be booking the same jobs as the other girls. And in fact, the first designer they meet says she would not hire a size 10. Whitney is upset even though she saw it coming. I finally think Dominique might be a little kinder toward Whitney, but I am wrong.

The teams swap go-sees, and the second designer Whitney meets does use plus-sized models. The other group doesn’t do so well at their second go-see. At a third location, they all meet up and the winner is announced. I just realized Katarzyna’s hair has not been cut. Anyway, the winning group is Claire, Whitney, Stacy-Ann, and Dominique. Stacy-Ann booked the most jobs. Team 1 gets to be in Seventeen magazine.

For the photo shoot, the girls pose face down, in water, on a huge sheet of plastic suspended above a stage. They don’t go through hair or makeup; in fact they are stripped of the makeup they are wearing. Claire belly flops onto the plastic even though Jay tells her not to, and hurts her neck. What an idiot. I like Claire, but she fucking does a belly flop onto a solid sheet of plastic! What did she think would happen?!?

Dominique rocks it. Claire sucks. I can see her going home tonight. Lauren does not do well. Anya is ok but keeps forgetting about her toes. Finally, they chop off Katarzyna’s hair. She does well. According to Jay, Whitney is “incredible,” and she’s funny – “You just can’t know what you look like. I mean, how often do you practice laying in puddles on the ground?” Stacy-Ann is just ok. Fatima does very well.

Awww, the girls all get along as they talk about how hard the photo shoot was.

In the judging room:
Claire’s photo is flat. She tries to blame it on her face-plant, but Tyra knows that Jay told Claire not to belly flop and she did it anyway.
Stacy-Ann struggled.
Katarzyna looks like a dancer and a model.
Whitney is alive. Her film blew Tyra away.
Dominique is beautiful and has a great expression.
Lauren looks like she’s dead. It’s her weakest shot yet. And she’s awful in front of the judges.
Fatima looks perfect. Her film was stunning.
Anya looks like a nymph and has good intensity.

YAY!!! Cover Girl of the Week is Katarzyna, my new favorite model. Obviously I don’t know why Claire didn’t win this week, but I would bet money it has to do with her nasty behavior in the last episode.

The judges deliberate: Claire is a one-note wonder. Katarzyna takes great photos, but has no personality in the judging room. Dominique looked awful at judging. Nigel thinks Fatima lucked into her shot. Lauren lacks self-confidence, and she’s not getting any better.

The winner is Fatima. The bottom two are Claire and Lauren. Claire can take great pictures, but they are monotonous. Lauren takes great pictures, but is “like Frankenstein” in person.

Claire is eliminated. I totally saw that coming!

Changing the Upfronts

There was an interesting piece on Marketplace last night about the way that NBC is attempting to change the upfront process and what affect it could have on the future of TV. Check it out here.

Two great tastes that taste great together!

Eeeeeeeee!

One of the girls I lied to, seduced, and abandoned is trying to ruin my life.

How I Met Your Mother – The Final Four
Barney tries to find the mystery woman who is out to ruin his reputation, and he uses the basketball tournament-bracket to eliminate 64 suspects, all of whom have reasons to hate him.

During March Madness, Barney continuously strikes out when hitting on girls. He keeps getting slapped and he can’t figure out what’s going on. Later, he and Lily are at the bar and when he leaves the table an anonymous girl comes up and tells Lily that Barney will do whatever it take to get in her pants. Barney realizes that some girl from his past is trashing his reputation all over town, so he sets up a bracket to figure out which of the many, many girls it could be.

As the group goes through Barney’s scrapbook of girls he’s slept with, Lily says all the girls have a right to hate him. Robin stands up for Barney, saying any woman who sleeps with him knows what she’s getting into. The group turns the whole thing into a party, fighting over which girl gets to move on in the tournament, and we hear a terrific list of lies Barney has told in order to get girls into bed (you have my wife’s kidney, owner of Google, fake baby). At the end, they all feel sad and a little dirty. Except Barney, of course.

After they narrow it down to four girls, Barney and Lily track them down one by one, but Lily refuses to ID the girl unless Barney apologizes. Fantastically, two of the four girls are ones we have met in previous episodes. We see the girl Barney took to someone else’s apartment and then left her there to get arrested for trespassing, and we see the girl Barney met the night he pretended to be “Ted Mosby, architect.” Unfortunately, none of the girls is the girl.

The group sets up a sting, with Barney pretending to hit on Robin. When Barney “goes to the bathroom” a girl approaches Robin, but Barney doesn’t recognize her. Surprisingly, Barney is shocked that he could not recognize someone he slept with and he actually apologizes, but it turns the girl is just a friend of Robin's from work. And then Ted’s voiceover says, “Eventually Barney did figure out who the girl was, but more on that later.” Could it be the mother?

The ep ends with Barney typing up his blog in a nod to Doogie Howser, M.D. It's really not that clever. It's only like 20% funny … and 80% lame.