Meet the Riches,Blood Ties and Top Design parties down

On Top Design,the remaining six decorators broke off into two teams and were challenged to create a five sense theme party to promote Barcardi Limon. One team was made up of Goil,Andrea and Erik. Goil had some cool ideas,like creating a chandelier out of Barcardi bottles,but was completely run over by Andrea and Erik who shoved alot of the dirty work on him. This really bummed out Goil,who had been looking forward to working with Andrea.



Team Two had their own probelms as tensions rose between Michael and Carisa(who was again stuck with buying the fabrics for the project). Carisa felt that Michael and Matt were trying to shut her out and she wasn't totally wrong there! Thank goodness that Michael's idea to hire some go-go dancers for the party was nixed in favor of having a bouncer instead.




Too bad that Michael picked out the flowers-calla lillies have no scent,plus plucking the lillies off of the stem for table floral arrangements was dumb. The whole point of calla lillies is that they're tall! Also,I agree with Carisa that mixing them with cabbage was weird. I just don't get that guy,I don't.

In the end,it was the team with the bouncer who won the day and the person sent home was Erik,who claimed responsibility for designing the losing team's space which was rather cluttered and filled with too many half done ideas. They really should've listened to Goil;he's shown his architectual skills are strong thru out this competition and if his input had been given more of a forum,the group would've had a better chance of winnning. Jonathan Adler took Goil to task for not speaking up but I don't think Adler appreciated the situation Goil was put in. His choices were to keep arguing to have things done his way or get to work so that the project could be completed on time. Many of us don't have the advantages of being their own boss,Adler!

The Riches debuted this past Monday on F/X and if you think this show's been hyped to death,let me assure you that the hoopla is well warrented. Eddie Izzard and Minnie Driver play Wayne and Dahlia Malloy who,along with their three kids,are part of a modern day gyspy clan who tire of the grifter life and decide to steal the American Dream by stepping into the life of a dead man. This preview gives a good lowdown on the plot and the major players:



Izzard and Driver have great chemistry together,plus the whole idea of faking your way to the top of the financial food chain is a pretty sweet one. If you click the title link above,you can watch the first two episodes online at Yahoo's tv section. Check this one out,folks,because we may have another Emmy winning series on our hands here. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.




Another new show that premiered this week was Lifetime Channel's Blood Ties,which is based on a series of paranormal romance thrillers by Tanya Huff. The basic premise here is that former top cop turned P.I. Vicki Nelson(she quit the force due to a progressive eye condition which will lead to blindness)is torn between working with her old homicide partner Mike on strange supernatural cases or Henry Fitzroy,a 450 year old vampire who only uses his powers for good. Henry's a rather sexy guy and quite a badass fighter, but not totally invulnerable. Demon wounds can take alot out of him and anyone else nearby:




Since I'm more of a vampire fan,this show is abit more up my alley than the Dresden Files(which is a decent series),so I'm hooked from the get go. Vicki's a good,strong character,even if she is prone to arguing with just about everyone she meets. Just hope that the plotlines get more intriguing as we go on.

Random Notes:

American Idol: It was Diana Ross week for the Top 12 and as usual,the best performances were from Lakisha and Melinda,with Jordin Sparks dogging their heels. I was truly puzzled by Chris Sligh's version of "Endless Love"-singing a duet as a solo performer is not easy(and yes,I know both Ross and Lionel Ritchie have done it separately)but that odd arrangement was really off putting. He nearly recieved the Singalong Screwup award this week but that honor goes to Sanjaya,who escaped the Song of Shame as Brandon was eliminated.

Sanjaya should have NEVER attempted "Ain't no Mountain High Enough" but whose bright idea was it to make him look like a lost member of the Jackson Five? Bad enough that he screwed up the song but resembling a Jim Henson creation on top of that added insult to injury:

SANJAYA MOLEHILL HIGH ENOUGH



ROSS CLIMBS HIGHER



As I said,the ladies truly truimphed here and if the rest of the guys were picked off for the rest of the season,that would be just fine with me. I do dig Chris Sligh but he really needs to get on the ball if he wants any real chance of entering the finals. Diana Ross was very nice to the contestants,being the Good Diva of the North. She really took a shine to Lakisha:



Melinda and Jordin are the only ones really giving Lakisha any competition here:

MELINDA



JORDIN



TAR/ALL-STARS: Joy was heard thru out the land as Rob and Amber were Philiminated on this last leg of the race. Particularly sweet was that the team who reached the Pit Stop ahead of them was Charla and Mirna,who Romber tried to mislead about the location of a clue box. They seemed to take it well but they're professional reality show players at this point,so there's bound to be another gig for them in the near future. I suspect that we have not seen the last of them:



I only saw part of the season that Charla and Mirna were originally on the Race,so I didn't realize how bitchy Charla can get. It was very annoying to see her shout at her cousin like that(more work,less talk next Detour,honey!)and to say in an aside interview that her team has "shortcomings" is so not cool. Let's see how the Race goes now without Team Romber leading the pack. This should mix things up better.

SMALLVILLE:

Tonight is the big wedding between Lex and Lana,which will end happily ever after,right? Wrong! If anything,this could be even more of a disaster than Zod attempting to conquer the earth: