Category: Television

Excellent Michael Emerson Interview

The Cheappop.com has a great interview with Michael Emerson, Ben, of Lost. The interview was given before the Season 4 finale. An excerpt:

What do you make of the relationship with Ben and Locke? I mean this season there’s almost a sibling rivalry thing going on.

I know that’s been funny in the last few episodes. When Locke, Ben and Hurley have been trekking around in the jungle, they’ve been bickering like brothers or roommates haven’t they? It’s been a nice note of humor I think and sort of a softening of the edges of Ben Linus, too. I mean obviously they’re locked in kind of a competition. I think it’s for a sense of control of the island or a sense of being the anointed one or the chosen one to lead, and Ben seems to have lost that battle. It’s now sort of John Locke’s island.

Read the whole interview

(Thanks to Kali!)

The Next Food Network Star – Star on the Go – summary

the next food network star

Robert Irvine at 3am? Must have been before the falling out with the Food Network. Well, he’s the guest panelist, and tells the teams that the big prize this week is getting featured in “USA Weekend” magazine.

The teams were told to head to specialty shops to answer questions. If you answer the question correctly, you can move on to take your first choice of ingredient. If you don’t answer correctly, you have to do a food prep task. The groups do OK at this, answering most of the questions correctly. One team had to do two food preps, another had to do one, and the last answered all the questions correctly.

After they got all their ingredients, they headed to a train station where they all board a train to cook. They have to prepare a brunch for the selection committee and 30 passengers. Aaron, Adam and Jennifer have Brioche, Ricotta, and Steak. They starts to argue for about runny eggs, whether they should make French toast… things were falling apart. The steaks looked good, but when they finally got food plated, the eggs weren’t looking good. Their presentation goes well, but the eggs were undercooked, and the French toast didn’t go over that well. They did like the steak.

The next team has lamb, blue cheese and baggettes. Nipa takes the lamb (for a lamb kabob), Shane does a salad with the blue cheese, and Lisa does a French toast. They do pretty well, but Lisa needs to a little last minute whipping for the crème freshe. Their presentation goes ok (and Lisa thankfully was much better than last week). The salad is overdressed, the lamb was spicy, but the French toast went over well. The selection committee liked the change Lisa made in her culinary point of view.

Jeffrey, Kelsey and Kevin went last. They had duck, raisin bread, and mozzarella. They make a duck salad, bread pudding, and honey glazed figs with crostini. The last time doesn’t have much oil, they don’t plate the right number of plates (at first), but finish it off. Their presentation is a little over the top, and doesn’t go over all that great with the judges. The bread pudding is tough (and they noticed they didn’t get as much as the other passengers), the salad was OK, and the duck was over cooked. Bobby Flay says he’ll talk to Kevin about his culinary point of view to get him to change it.

They judging starts, and it goes does pretty much as the critiques went as they were eating.

In front of the judges, we see the “walkout” from last week’s preview. Bobby asks Nipa, “Are you enthusiastic about this?” She responds, “I don’t know.” They question her a bit more, complimenting her, and wondering why she isn’t more enthusiastic when they’re enthusiastic about her. Finally Nipa says, “I’m sorry, I can’t do this anymore” and walks out, much to the surprise of the judges and the other contestants.

The judges and the contestants talk a bit about this walkoff. Nipa returns and explains why she wants to get on the network. The judges rhetorically ask whether she’s ready or not.

Lisa and Aaron win the big “USA Weekend” story. The judges narrow down the selection between Nipa and Kevin, and inexplicably pick Nipa. They do put her on notice though, explaining if a Food Network “star” walked off a show like that, they’d probably be fired. Nipa apologizes to the group, and Kevin makes his exit.

Overall, I think Lisa made a good transition from the first week. It was an interesting challenge. Looks like Lisa and Aaron are the odds on favorites to win… at least for now.

Prison for Man Who Robbed Sawyer


Josh Holloway who plays Sawyer on Lost might be able to rest a bit easier today. The man who robbed Holloway and his wife at gunpoint was sentenced to 13 to 30 years in prison on Tuesday. Prosecutors say that Ruben Royce (23) broken into Holloway’s home, threatened them with a gun, took their wallets and drove off in their Mercedes.

LOST: Harold Perrineau Explains His Previous Interview


On LOST, even when your character dies, it doesn’t mean we won’t see him again. I got that feeling when reading this new interview with Harold Perrineau (Michael) on his departure from LOST. In his previous interview, he sounded pretty bitter. In a new Entertainment Weekly interview, he tries to set the record straight:

Do you regret going public with your feelings?
I should probably think more before I say things. I should especially think before I say anything racial, because I recognize that when you make a racial comment it polarizes people. That was never the intention. It’s like, “No, no, no, don’t choose sides. I’m just telling you this is what I think. Everybody stay on whatever side you’re on; this is my point-of-view.” I should think about those things, and then unfortunately what happens is I just start to talk — like I’m doing now, I should probably shut up. [laughs]

The article discusses other things, such as his favorite scenes from LOST, his least favorite moment, and what happens when you find out that your character won’t be around much longer.

Via EW.com

The Next Food Network Star: Star Quality


Season 4 of “The Next Food Network Star” has begun and it looks like it’ll be a good one. Lots of strong personalities, and even a familiar face. (Cory Kahaney is a comedienne that I’ve seen on TV before).

The first challenge was to create a tag line for the chef’s point of view. Most people did pretty well, but a few really didn’t seem to get their point across. Surprisingly, Cory, who’s been up in front of MANY people before, froze and stumbled a bit. I think that was just nerves, and she’ll end up doing OK on the show.

The other person who didn’t do well was Lisa. I think she knows exactly where she wants to go, it’s just that she made it sound more complicated than it probably was. Alton Brown (who helped the contestants) tried to give a few pointers, but I’m not sure she got it.

The second challenge teamed the contestants in groups of two to create their dishes. For the most part they worked well together (some groups didn’t). They cooked two dishes individually, and one together. This went OK for the most part, but ever group did have something go wrong.

Shane and Nipa’s presentation dish didn’t look good at all, since the pork was raw in the middle. (The food they served was cooked).

Lisa tried to express her culinary point of view again, and it confused people.

Jennifer and Adam’s meatloaf went into the oven very late, and they ended up pulling it out and then frying it on the stove top. Unfortunately, the potatoes were raw. Both contestants made a good impression.

Kelsey and Aaron have a hard time plating, and end up serving incomplete plates.

Jeffrey and Cory seemed pretty nervous and the food didn’t go over that well. The judges were surprised Cory was that nervous.

At judging, Kelsey and Aaron did very well. The judges told the rest some of them they had problems with their food, or with the presentation of themselves. (Some had both). You could really tell that some of them were very confident, and others were still extremely nervous. Some of the people that seemed confident really shouldn’t have been, because their food didn’t go over all that well.

In the elimination, Kelsey, Aaron, Jennifer, Adam, Jeffrey were safe and left the room.

Cory, Nipa, Shane, Lisa were put up on the block. They immediately told Nipa and Shane they were safe for now, leaving Lisa and Cory.

Cory went home. I think this is a real shame, since she didn’t really have a good chance to show off her personality or ability.

In the previews, it looks like Nipa walks off the set during judging…. I bet THAT will go over well with the judges.

Lost Season 4 Finale Theories And Thoughts


Big Spoilers Ahead! Don’t Say I Didn’t Warn You!

Well, that was quite a finale. I’d been in the “Ben’s in the coffin” camp for quite a while now, and it wasn’t until near the very end when I snapped out of it, thinking “Hey! Everything they’re saying points to Ben being in that coffin… There’s no way they’re going to do that! It’s gotta be Locke!” And it turns it out was.

Thinking back on it now, what purpose would there be to having Ben be the one in the coffin? Most (if not all) of the Oceanic 6 would be happy to see him there, sure, but then what? Locke had his chances to try and get them to come back to the island, after things went bad. Now it leaves everything up in the air. What the heck DID happen on that island?

And more importantly, if the island doesn’t want people to die that it has a use for, how did Locke end up dying?

I think that last question is easy to answer: It might have needed Locke up until that time, but when things started to go wrong, Locke became expendable. We saw that when Ben got sick. Not supposed to get sick on the island, right? Well, Ben was probably surprised as anyone when he got sick.

There’s definitely been a lot of manipulation on this show, and it’s likely Locke was manipulated even further after the Oceanic 6 was rescued. We’re almost assured of that, and one of the likely culprits is Matthew Abaddon. Why do I say that? Remember in “Cabin Fever”? Abaddon suggested that Locke go on walk-about, and if he did, that “You’ll owe me one”. What Locke ended up doing in return probably seemed small to him at the time, but it might be what lead to his downfall.

Some random thoughts:

Sure looks like Charlotte’s been on that island before… And from the reaction that Miles had to her, it sure seems like he sensed she was a ghost. Maybe he picked up on that “vibe” when he realized there wasn’t something quite right with Claire.

When Ben and Locke parted ways, why did Ben use the phrase: “Richard and my people” will be waiting? It’s probably nothing, but it struck me as a bit odd that he singled out Richard that way. It’s obvious to everyone now that there’s more to Richard than it first appears, but I thought it was interesting none the less. All it probably means is that Ben is in on Richard’s secret.

The phone call Kate received was a voice speaking backwards. I heard that right away. It said ”The island needs you….You have to go back before it’s too late.” (Hat tip to Jeff Jensen’s column in EW.com for pointing this translation on Friday). Interesting juxtaposition from what Claire said to Kate: “Don’t you dare bring him back!”

I made a lot of wrong predictions in an earlier post, but this was right on the money:

What happens if the device the transports the island is very cold? So cold that have to get into heavy coats just to keep warm while operating the device? And what about that “Frozen Donkey Wheel” code word the writers have been using for this finale? If it’s a very old device, it could be in the shape of a big wheel, the kind of wheel you might see donkeys hooked up with in a mill. Turning that wheel might realign the island in order to facilitate the island’s move.

It was really a great touch at the very end to have Ben tell Jack that he had to go all “Body Snatcher”. It’s pretty obvious that getting Locke back on the island will bring him back, ala Christian Shepard.